

Lloyd Austin rebukes China’s ‘more coercive and aggressive approach’
Mike Brest June 11, 12:08 PM June 11, 12:08 PMDefense Secretary Lloyd Austin criticized China’s recently heightened aggression towards its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific in the course of a speech on the country's doorstep.
He condemned China’s “expanding fishing fleet” and its “outposts on man-designed islands bristling with superior weaponry to progress its illegal maritime claims” whilst the country’s “vessels plunder the region’s provisions, functioning illegally in the territorial waters of other Indo-Pacific nations around the world.”
"Indo-Pacific international locations should not confront political intimidation, economic coercion, or harassment by maritime militias," Austin said Saturday in a keynote deal with to the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia's premier protection conference, held in Singapore.
Protection SECRETARY AUSTIN Meets CHINESE COUNTERPART FOR Initial IN-Particular person DIALOGUE
The secretary vowed the Protection Division “will sustain [its] energetic existence across the Indo-Pacific.”
Austin also condemned China's aggression toward Taiwan, the island of 24 million people today that considers itself independent from China, while the mainland views it as a territory of its very own place.
"We’ve found an alarming maximize in the range of unsafe aerial intercepts and confrontations at sea by PLA plane and vessels," he claimed, right before reaffirming America's motivation to its "a single China" policy, which rejects Taiwanese independence.
"We continue to be firmly committed to our prolonged-standing a person-China coverage — guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the 3 Joint Communiques, and the 6 Assurances. We categorically oppose any unilateral alterations to the position quo from either aspect," the secretary mentioned. "We do not help Taiwan independence. And we stand firmly powering the theory that cross-strait variances will have to be solved by tranquil implies."
A Chinese military chief accused Austin of pushing "unfounded accusations."
"There were being numerous unfounded accusations in opposition to China, and we expressed our potent dissatisfaction and company opposition to these wrong accusations," Lt. Gen. Zhang Zhenzhong, the deputy chief of the Joint Staff members Division of China's Central Navy Commission, instructed reporters, according to CNN.
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Past month, President Joe Biden appeared to announce a shift in policy when he affirmed all through a push convention in Asia that the United States would intervene militarily in Taiwan, however the White Residence afterwards said he was not speaking about a coverage improve. This was not the 1st time his communications workforce experienced to backpedal an obvious promise to use the armed service to protect Taiwan.
Austin achieved with his Chinese counterpart, Minister of National Defense Gen. Wei Fenghe, on Friday.
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