TAIPEI, Taiwan — Along with fulminating against the United States, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi reasserted China’s South China Sea claims, blasted Japan for its past aggression and covered a wide range of other issues during his annual meeting with the press. Here are some of the key topics covered during his Friday press conference.
China has clashed frequently with the Philippines over ownership of and access to islands in the South China Sea, whose rich fishing grounds China claims virtually in its entirety. However, Wang was quick to place blame elsewhere, saying Manila was being manipulated by forces “outside the region,” its standard term for the U.S.
Wang called the entire conflict a “shadow play,” saying an unidentified regional official had used the term at a recent meeting, and said each incident was a “line of script” disseminated by the foreign media with the goal of “smearing China.”
“China will continue to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in accordance with the law. When managing Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal, we will also reflect our humanitarian spirit according to actual needs. But I want to make it clear here that infringement and provocation will inevitably bear its own fruit, and those who are willing to be chess pieces will eventually be discarded.”
Wang also said that Chinese cooperation with its neighbors had eliminated many of the compounds where Chinese nationals, many of them coerced or lured by false promises of legitimate jobs, are forced to contact people in China in a bid to extract money from them through false claims of debts owed or other illegal means.
“All the cyber fraud parks in northern Myanmar near the border have been cleared. China, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are working together to crack down on cyber fraud in the Thai-Myanmar border area. Our mission is to cut off the evil hands reaching out to the people and eradicate the cancer of online cyber fraud,” Wang said.
Such operations, usually linked to organized crime, are notoriously quick to resume operations elsewhere. China has been battling the issue for years as the gangs grown increasingly sophisticated in their access to victims’ private information. Hundreds of citizens from other countries have also been caught up in such fraudulent schemes targeting victims as far away as the United States.
Wang referred to the upcoming 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, saying “there are still some people in Japan who have not reflected on their mistakes.” China’s education and propaganda systems keep alive memories of Japan’s brutal invasion and occupation of much of China before and during the war and anti-Japanese consumer boycotts and other protests pop-up over perceived slights.
Wang also linked the issue to Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that was a Japanese colony until the end of the war and which maintains close ties to Japan to this day. China claims the island as its own territory and has threatened to take control by force if necessary. Wang said “it is better to remember that if Taiwan causes trouble, it is to cause trouble for Japan.”
China also claims uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Japan, and regularly sends ships and planes into areas surrounding them, much as it does with Taiwan. That prompts Japan to scramble jets to defend what it says are islands legitimately absorbed before World War II because no other nation had a legal claim to them. That too has proved a source of tension in the region and a space where China can challenge the authority of the U.S. and its allies.
Wand touted China as “the center of stability in Asia, an engine of economic development and a support for regional security,” while blasting the U.S. for basing intermediate-range missiles around China and having “done nothing but stir up trouble and create divisions.” China advocates “open regionalism and share Asia’s development opportunities on the basis of mutual respect, mutual benefit and win-win results.”
Wang said “if every country stresses my country first and is obsessed with a position of strength, the law of the jungle would reign (across) the world again.” While China has been the subject of suspicion and concern from the Indian Ocean to northern Japan, the South Pacific has lately emerged as a major area of competition between China on one side and the U.S., Australia and New Zealand on the other.
China’s secret security agreements and promises of infrastructure have prompted the three to tighten relations in recognition of the islands’ strategic geographic location after years of what some have described as neglect. However, a U.S. cutoff in aid, along with generous Chinese incentives, could further push them into Beijing’s arms. Three of these — Tuvalu, Palau and the Marshall Islands are also among Taiwan’s handful of formal diplomatic allies.
