BEIJING, 3 Mar: China on Friday reaffirmed its criticism of the Quad grouping comprising the US, India, Australia and Japan, saying the state-to-state interactions should pursue peace and development and contribute to mutual trust and regional stability, rather than exclusivity.
\nThe Quad foreign ministers carried out a comprehensive review of the situation in the Indo-Pacific region at a meeting in New Delhi on Friday. Presided over by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, the meeting was attended by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, his Japanese counterpart Yoshimasa Hayashi, and Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
\nThe meeting came against the backdrop of growing global concerns over increasing Chinese assertiveness in the strategically vital region.
\nA joint statement issued after the meeting reaffirmed the four-nation grouping’s commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, and said it strongly supports the principles of rule of law, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and peaceful settlement of disputes.
\nResponding to the Quad statement at a media briefing here, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that China believes that state-to-state interactions should be in line with the trend of the time, which is peace and development, rather than exclusivity.
\n“We think that countries should do more to contribute to regional mutual trust, peace and regional stability,” she said, reaffirming Beijing’s oft-repeated opposition to the Quad, stating that it is an exclusive bloc aimed at containing China’s rise.
\nIn November 2017, India, Japan, the US, and Australia gave shape to the long-pending proposal of setting up the Quad to develop a new strategy to keep the critical sea routes in the Indo-Pacific free of any influence.
\nUS President Joe Biden hosted the first-ever summit of the Quad leaders in the virtual format in March 2021 that vowed to strive for an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, inclusive, anchored by democratic values, and unconstrained by coercion, sending a subtle message to China.
\nBeijing claims almost all of the 1.3 million square miles of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory. China has been building military bases on artificial islands in the region also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam.
\nOn China’s reluctance, along with Russia, to endorse a joint statement on the Ukraine war at the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi on Thursday, spokesperson Ning said that the G20 is a premier forum for international economic cooperation.
\nThe G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi was unable to come out with a joint communiqu\u00e9 due to a bitterly increasing rift between the US-led Western powers and Russia over the Ukraine conflict despite consistent efforts by host India to bridge the differences.
\nNing said that the leaders of all 20-member bloc at the Bali summit last year made it clear that the G20 is not a forum to resolve security issues and China believes that the grouping should follow through on leaders’ common understanding and focus on this responsibility and make contributions to promoting stable, inclusive and sustainable economic recovery.
\n“Some G20 members hold different views on the Ukraine crisis. We hope the members can respect one another and show solidarity and cooperation rather than division and mutual accusation,” Ning said.
\nAbout China’s views on the outcome of the New Delhi meeting of the G20 foreign ministers, she said: “We believe the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting is an important forum, especially given the international background and challenges.”
\n“We hope G20 can show responsibility and make due contributions for the world economic recovery and development,” she said.
\nChinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang took part in the meeting.
\nThe G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum of the world’s major developed and developing economies.
\nThe members represent around 85 percent of the global GDP, over 75 percent of the global trade, and about two-thirds of the world population.
\nThe grouping comprises Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the UK, the US, and the European Union. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING, 3 Mar: China on Friday reaffirmed its criticism of the Quad grouping comprising the US, India, Australia and Japan, saying the state-to-state interactions should pursue peace and development and contribute to mutual trust and regional stability, rather than exclusivity. The Quad foreign ministers carried out a comprehensive review of the situation in the Indo-Pacific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-212123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212123\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}