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Blinken: The US doesn't have 'the luxury of not dealing with China'
[The Hill] Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday expressed optimism about the United States' ability to stand up to China as it works to grow its influence and become the world's dominant power.In a wide-ranging interview with "60 Minutes" that aired on Sunday, Blinken told CBS’s Norah O’Donnell that the U.S. does not have "the luxury of not dealing with China." "There are real complexities to the relationship, whether it's the adversarial piece, whether it's the competitive piece, whether it's the cooperative piece," Blinken said. Blinken said China is the "one country in the world that has the military, economic, diplomatic capacity to undermine or challenge" the rules-based international order, which is the written and unwritten code that determines how nations deal with each other. He stressed that the U.S. is not trying to "contain China," but instead "uphold this ruled-based order." "Anyone who poses a challenge to that order, we're going to stand up and-- and defend it," he added. Blinken did say, however, when asked by O’Donnell, that he has never seen China as assertive or aggressive militarily as it is now. He said the country is "acting more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad." The secretary of state also said it is "profoundly against the interests" of both China and the U.S. to get to the point of military confrontation, or "even to head in that direction." Posted by: Besoeker 2021-05-03 |
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