Do not threaten regional stability, US tells China

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, during a phone call with China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi, said that the US will work together with its allies and partners and hold Beijing "accountable for its efforts to threaten stability in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, and its undermining of the rules-based international system."

Blinken also pressed China to join the international community in condemning the military coup in Myanmar, said the State Department in a statement accessed here.

He told Yang, director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, that the US will continue to stand up for human rights and democratic values, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.

"The Secretary reaffirmed that the United States will work together with its allies and partners in defense of our shared values and interests to hold the PRC accountable for its efforts to threaten stability in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, and its undermining of the rules-based international system," Blinken told Yang during their first known conversation since he became secretary of state late last month.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry quoted Yang as telling Blinken, "The Taiwan question, the most important and sensitive core issue in China-US relations, bears on China's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

In addition, "Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet-related affairs are all China's internal affairs and allow no interference by any external forces," Yang said.

"Any attempt to slander and smear China will not succeed, and China will continue to firmly safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests," he told Blinken.

On Thursday, Biden in his first major foreign policy speech said that his administration will "compete from a position of strength, by building back better at home, working with our allies and partners, renewing our role in international institutions, and reclaiming our credibility and moral authority.

"We will confront China's economic abuses, counter its aggressive, coercive action, to push back on China's attack on human rights, intellectual property and global governance."

He also said, "We are ready to work with Beijing when it's in America's interest to do so."

But the Blinken statement made no mention of this aspect of the US foreign policy.