WEB DESK
China on Monday warned South Korea and the US to act prudentially on the Taiwan question and refrain from playing with fire after a US-South Korea joint statement mentioned issues related to Taiwan and the South China Sea. The joint statement was issued on Friday following the summit level talks between US President Joe Biden and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in at the White House. The two countries also reaffirmed support for “enhanced cooperation with Pacific Island countries” and acknowledged the importance of “open, transparent, and inclusive regional multilateralism including the Quad” – the security grouping of the US, Japan, Australia, and India.
Expressing concern over it, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said the Taiwan question bears on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and allows no interference by external forces. In the same breath, he also said, China always opposes relevant countries in creating small cliques targeting other countries including the “quadrilateral mechanism” and “Indo-Pacific strategy”.
As an important outcome of the Summit, the United States has given South Korea freedom to develop missiles that can reach beyond the Korean peninsula, lifting the earlier restrictions that limited South Korean missiles’ range to 800 kilometers.