VIENTIANE, Laos: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Beijing\u2019s \u201cincreasingly dangerous\u201d actions in the South China Sea and voiced support for freedom of navigation as he met leaders of the ASEAN bloc on Friday.
\n\u201cWe remain concerned about China\u2019s increasingly dangerous and unlawful actions on the South and East China Seas, which have injured people, harmed vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolution of disputes,\u201d Blinken told Southeast Asian leaders gathered in Laos.
\n\u201cThe United States will continue to support freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight in the Indo-Pacific,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Blinken said that the United States also hoped to work with ASEAN leaders to \u201cprotect stability across the Taiwan Strait,\u201d where tension has risen again as China this week denounced remarks by the self-governing democracy\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
Blinken is representing the United States at the annual Southeast Asian meeting, where China has heard directly from leaders of concern about the dispute-rife South China Sea.
\nThe Philippines has been alarmed by violent incidents as Beijing exerts its claims in the strategic waterway.<\/p>\n
Another prominent theme at the summit is Myanmar, whose military junta sent a representative to the ASEAN meeting for the first time in more than three years. Myanmar\u2019s delegation joined the meeting with Blinken but it was unclear if there was any direct interaction.
\nBlinken said he wanted to discuss the \u201cdeepening crisis in Myanmar\u201d \u2014 a rare US usage of the country\u2019s official name and not the former Burma.
\nBlinken also urged firmness against Russia\u2019s \u201cwar of aggression\u201d in Ukraine, ahead of a full East Asia Summit in which Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will participate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VIENTIANE, Laos: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Beijing\u2019s \u201cincreasingly dangerous\u201d actions in the South China Sea and voiced support for freedom of navigation as he met leaders of the ASEAN bloc on Friday. \u201cWe remain concerned about China\u2019s increasingly dangerous and unlawful actions on the South and East China Seas, which have injured …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":71477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71479,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71443\/revisions\/71479"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}