China: US-Japan Actions Stoke Division 04/17 10:40

   China hit back at the U.S.-Japan show of alliance during talks between 
President Joe Biden and Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, calling it an 
"ironic attempt of stoking division."

   BEIJING (AP) -- China hit back at the U.S.-Japan show of alliance during 
talks between President Joe Biden and Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, 
calling it an "ironic attempt of stoking division."

   China said Suga and Biden's news conference Friday, in which they issued a 
joint statement on shared values in democracy and human rights and aired 
concerns about China's activities in the Indo-Pacific region, had gone "far 
beyond the scope of normal development of bilateral relations."

   "It cannot be more ironic that such attempt of stoking division and building 
blocs against other countries is put under the banner of 'free and open,'" the 
spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in a statement Saturday.

   The statement by the Japanese and U.S. leaders also mentioned the importance 
of "peace and stability" in the Taiwan Strait, marking the first time a 
Japanese prime minister had spoken out in a communique with the United States 
on Taiwan since 1969 talks between Richard Nixon and Eisaku Sato.

   Japan, long cautious in managing relations with its neighbor, has become 
more outspoken with Suga.

   The U.S. and China have clashed over a wide range of issues in the last few 
years, including human rights in Tibet and the Xinjiang region, a crackdown on 
protests and political freedom in Hong Kong, China's assertion of its 
territorial claims to Taiwan and most of the South China Sea and accusations 
Beijing was slow to inform the world about the COVID-19 outbreak.

   China claims self-governing Taiwan as its territory and says, like Hong 
Kong, it should be under Beijing's control.

   "The U.S. should never try to play the Taiwan card," Le Yucheng, China's 
vice foreign minister, said in an interview with The Associated Press in 
Beijing on Friday. "It is very dangerous. This is our red line. The U.S. should 
never try to cross it."

   The U.S.-Japan joint statement also expressed concern over human rights in 
Hong Kong and for China's ethnic Muslim minority. Both leaders declared they 
planned to work with China "on areas of common interest."

   China again reiterated its stance on Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong, all of 
which it considers domestic matters.

   "These matters bear on China's fundamental interests and allow no 
interference. We express strong concern and firm opposition to relevant 
comments in the Joint Leaders' Statement," it said.