US Vice President Kamala Harris mentioned challenges posed by China with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and agreed to stay intently aligned throughout conferences with the leaders in Munich, the White House stated on Friday.
Harris “discussed challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China, including the importance of upholding the rules-based order, and agreed to remain closely aligned,” the White House stated in an announcement.
The conferences of the US vice chairman with the European leaders, held alongside the Munich Security Conference, come amid a bitter dispute between China and the United States over the US army’s capturing down of what it stated was a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina early this month. China says the balloon was for monitoring climate.
Harris defended the United States’ dealing with of the balloon incident and the capturing down of three different unidentified objects.
“It needed to be shot down because we were confident that it was used by China to spy on American people,” Harris instructed MSNBC.
Separately, the Pentagon’s high China official, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Chase, arrived in Taiwan, two sources conversant in the matter stated on Friday, starting a go to that might additional exacerbate tensions between Beijing and Washington.
Although the United States, like most international locations, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, it’s the island’s most essential arms provider and the 2 have a detailed safety relationship.
China, which views Taiwan as its personal territory, has repeatedly demanded that international officers not go to the democratically ruled island.
US diplomatic communications with China stay open after the capturing down of the Chinese balloon, however contact between the international locations’ militaries remained shut down, the White House stated earlier on Friday.
China reduce a number of military-to-military communication channels and different areas of bilateral dialogue after an August go to to Taiwan by then-US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. —Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
