Ministry slams US attempts to maintain its hegemony

Beijing said on Wednesday that a report Washington released on its Indo-Pacific strategy had exposed its malign motives to contain China and sabotage regional peace and stability.

The recently declassified United States Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, which was released by the Trump administration on Tuesday, includes accelerating India's rise as a counterweight to Beijing, the ability to defend Taiwan against an attack, and maintaining US strategic primacy in the region.

The Indo-Pacific strategy aims to maintain US hegemony, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily news conference.

The document has purposefully distorted China's neighborhood policy and sensationalized the "China threat" theory, Zhao said, adding that it "highlights the Cold War mentality and military confrontation".

China has made important contributions to regional peace, stability and prosperity, which is obvious to countries in the region, said Zhao, adding that Washington is the real troublemaker and the real force working to sabotage peace, stability and cooperation in the region.

The document also reveals that the US government has gone against its own pledge on the Taiwan question, he said.

China urges the US to fully understand the sensitivity of the Taiwan question and properly handle it and refrain from sending wrong signals to "Taiwan independence" forces, he said.

Beijing hopes Washington will respect China's core interests and major concerns, and will strengthen dialogue with China to properly manage differences, he added.

"We need to ensure that the Asia-Pacific region is a stage for China and the US to enhance mutually beneficial cooperation, and it should not become an arena where a zero-sum game plays out," Zhao said.

Claims rebuffed

Also on Wednesday, the spokesman urged the United Kingdom and Canada to immediately revoke their wrong decisions on imports from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, adding that China will take all necessary measures to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests.

The UK and Canada announced they were banning the import of goods that they claimed were made by "forced labor" in Xinjiang. Zhao said that these moves were untenable, adding that the measures were made based on lies and false information.

"The so-called forced labor is nothing but a lie fabricated by certain institutions and individuals in Western countries," he said.

"Certain countries, including the UK, have funded the fabrication of lies and rumors and deliberately spread them. They have used the so-called human rights issue as an excuse to smear China, and taken various measures to restrict and oppress enterprises in Xinjiang."

This has fully exposed their hypocritical nature and sinister intentions to curb Xinjiang's development and interfere in China's internal affairs, Zhao said.