Previously, the US Secretary of State said that China's “economic coercion” would hinder improvements in Washington's relationship with Beijing.
China has accused the United States of conducting “coercive diplomacy”, after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made similar comments during a briefing with his Australian counterpart.
“I reiterated that the United States will not leave Australia alone on the field, or maybe I should say alone on the pitch, in the face of economic coercion by China,” Blinken said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said it was the US which has been imposing economic sanctions to achieve its goals.
Hua pointed out that Chinese telecommunications and other high-tech industries are falling victim to “economic coercion”.
US-China relations were marred by the tariff war and tensions surrounding tech giants Huawei and ZTE, with the Trump administration repeatedly accusing the companies of cooperating with Chinese intelligence to help Beijing to spy, which Chinese authorities and the companies denied.
Things have not gotten much better since Biden's administration took office, with the US Commerce Department announcing last month that seven Chinese supercomputing companies were “destabilising military modernisation efforts” and adding them to the “Entity List for conducting activities that are contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States”.
Blinken made his remarks at a press…
