Two senior officials in US President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday slammed Beijing for coercive behaviour globally on the economic, defence and other fronts, and discussed their wide-ranging efforts to push back.
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America’s ambassador to China, Ambassador Nicholas Burns, highlighted “very ill-advised efforts by the government of China to intimidate the Philippines at Second Thomas Shoal, at Sabina Shoal, in an incident at Scarborough Shoal, just to name three incidents over the last month or so”.
“And we’ve used our diplomatic channels, certainly I have done so,” he said in an FP Live interview from Beijing. “Secretary [Antony] Blinken did when he was here a couple of months ago, and Jake Sullivan did last week to tell the Chinese leadership very directly, we have an ironclad commitment to defend the Philippines.”
Echoing Burns, Jose Fernandez, the State Department’s undersecretary for economic growth, energy and the environment, said China was facing greater scrutiny and resistance when it wielded its sizeable trade and geopolitical leverage to coerce smaller countries economically, even as it remained highly adept at pressure tactics.
Xi meets with visiting US national security adviser