Blinken insists to Beijing on the rights of Uyghurs

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday urged Beijing to respect the rights of the Uighurs, Tibet and Hong Kong in his first meeting with the Chinese government since Joe Biden came to power.

AFP

"I made it clear that the United States would defend our national interests, fight for our democratic values and hold Beijing accountable for any abuses against the international system," Blinken tweeted after a telephone conversation with a senior Chinese diplomat, Yang Jiechi.

The head of U.S. diplomacy told his interlocutor that the United States "will continue to defend human rights and democratic values, including in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong," a State Department statement said.

Blinken also "urged China to join the international community in condemning the military coup in Burma," the statement added.

According to the same statement, the U.S. Secretary of State said the United States would hold Beijing "responsible for its attempts to destabilize the Indo-Pacific region, including the Taiwan Strait, and for its attacks on the established rules of the international system.

During his hearing before the US Senate on 19 January, shortly before he took office, Mr Blinken had already used a particularly harsh tone towards Beijing. He had said that former President Donald Trump had been "right" to take a "tougher stance against China".

"We must face China from a position of strength, not weakness," he had argued, saying he agreed with the Trump administration that Beijing was committing genocide in the Xinjiang region (west) against Uighur Muslims.

Yang Jiechi for his part stressed during the telephone interview that Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet were "internal affairs of China" and "no external force can be allowed to interfere". He called on the United States to "correct the mistakes" made in recent years, according to a statement from the Chinese embassy in the United States.

The Chinese official also called on Washington to "strictly adhere to the One China Principle," under which Beijing considers Taiwan as one of its provinces. He stressed that "the Taiwan question is the most important and sensitive central issue in Sino-American relations".

Beijing is stepping up efforts to isolate the island diplomatically, which has been ruled since 1945 by a regime (the "Republic of China") that had taken refuge there after the communist victory in mainland China in 1949 after the Chinese civil war.

Source: AFP