‘Aggressive’ China challenging world order, says Antony Blinken

The US Secretary of State insists Washington’s purpose is not to contain Beijing.

Antony Blinken disembarks at Stansted Airport, northeast of London, on Monday for the G7 foreign ministers meeting. Picture: AFP

An increasingly powerful China is challenging the world order, acting “more repressively” and “more aggressively” as it flexes its muscles, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview that aired on Monday AEST.

“What we’ve witnessed over the last several years is China acting more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad. That is a fact,” America’s top diplomat told CBS’s 60 Minutes, broadcast as he arrived in London for the G7 foreign ministers meeting.

His comments came after US President Joe Biden, in his first address to congress last week, underscored that he was not seeking conflict with Beijing.

Mr Biden said he told Chinese President Xi Jinping that in the competition to be the dominant power of the 21st century, “we welcome the competition — and that we are not looking for conflict”.

Mr Blinken said China was “the one country in the world that has the military, economic, diplomatic capacity to undermine or challenge the rules-based order that we care so much about and are determined to defend.

“But I want to be very clear about something … our purpose is not to contain China, to hold it back, to keep it down; it is to uphold this rules-based order that China is posing a challenge to.”

Tensions with China have risen sharply over the past few years as the US also takes issue with Beijing’s assertive military moves and human rights concerns, including what Washington has described as genocide against the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.

AFP