The German Foreign Minister urged China on Friday to ask “the Russian aggressor to stop the war” in Ukraine and warned that a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait would be a “catastrophic scenario” worldwide.
“I must openly say that I wonder why the Chinese position has not yet included a request to the Russian aggressor to stop the war,” Annalena Baerbock said at a news conference in Beijing alongside her Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang.
The head of German diplomacy stressed that “no other country has more influence in Russia than China.”
Annalena Baerbock also stated that “a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait, through which 50% of world trade passes every day, would be a catastrophic scenario for the entire world.”
Beijing considers Taiwan one of its provinces and sees Taiwan’s international contacts as moves toward formal independence for the island, whose sovereignty has been claimed since the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1949.
The nationalist forces, led by Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), refugees on the island, established the Republic of China in Formosa, causing tensions that have lasted since the end of the Civil War, as Beijing seeks to reunify the territory still if it is “I have to use force”.
The minister also denounced the restriction of human rights in China.
“I explained to my counterpart in our bilateral talks that we are concerned that the scope of civil society in China continues to shrink and that human rights are being restricted,” he told reporters in Beijing, referring to the situation of the Uyghur community in Xinjiang.
Source: TSF
