Meddling joint statement has crossed redline

Beijing has reasons to feel offended by a joint statement issued by Ottawa and Seoul recently.

The joint statement the two countries released at the end of the Canada-Republic of Korea Foreign and Defense (2+2) Ministerial Meeting on Friday last week has gone far beyond the scope of bilateral ties.

Borrowing the "Indo-Pacific" concept, a veneer the United States uses to cover its China-containment strategy, the document hypes up the "threat" the two countries face in the region, expressing their concern about the South China Sea issue, to which both are external parties.

Although the two countries emphasized the importance of maintaining peace, security, stability and freedom of navigation and overflight in and above the South China Sea, they should be well aware that this is all rhetoric that the US and its allies use to provoke China, by taking advantage of their maritime disputes to support the Philippines to do Washington's bidding.

The South China Sea is one of the safest and freest maritime routes in the world, and there has never been any problem with the freedom of navigation and overflight in the waters.

Although they know that the US' implementation of a China-containment strategy, citing "China threat", is the root cause of rising uncertainties and risks in the Asia-Pacific, they still try to call black white by hinting that it is China that is making "unilateral attempts to change the status quo in the Indo-Pacific".

Both Canada and the ROK are major trading partners with China and benefit tremendously from the healthy development of Sino-Canadian and Sino-ROK ties. While most US allies were adopting a wait-and-see attitude before the US presidential election on Tuesday — Japan, and the ROK, have actually tried to repair and stabilize ties with China — it is not clear why, on this occasion, Canada and the ROK want to irk China with such a meddling statement.

The most outrageous thing regarding the document is that they feel no qualms about openly interfering in China's internal affairs, the Taiwan question. Both countries uphold the one-China principle, and if they really think peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is "indispensable to international security and prosperity", they should stop poking their nose on the Taiwan question, which is not their business at all.

The Taiwan question concerns China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and core interests, and brooks no interference from any external party.

As the spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Canada said, the greatest threat to cross-Strait peace is the "Taiwan independence" separatist activities and foreign interference. Canada and the ROK should earnestly abide by the one-China principle and unequivocally oppose the "Taiwan independence" separatist forces.