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President Xi Jinping‘s official mouthpiece slammed the U.S. for “weaponizing” the Pacific Island Countries.
What Happened: China’s Global Times newspaper, citing geo-political experts, accused the U.S. of trying to set up an anti-China front to serve America’s adventurism.
An unnamed expert told the publication that allowing the U.S. military in the area is like “opening a sheep pen to wolves.” It added that cooperations on peace, development and climate change are rather important agendas for these island nations.
See Also: Xi Jinping’s China Wants To ‘Enhance’ Taiwan Ties — But Not In The Usual Way Governments Do
The developments came after Washington, over the weekend, announced that it has made “substantial progress” with Papua New Guinea on the text of a defense cooperation agreement.
The U.S. Department of State said negotiators from the department and PNG’s Department of Foreign Affairs held talks from Feb. 6 to 10 in Hawaii to strengthen security cooperation between the two countries.
Although the U.S. did not mention “China” in their statement, Global Times referred to the Reuters report and wrote, “as an open secret,” the negotiations came amid “mounting concern” over the Taiwan question and South China Sea disputes.
The U.S. has always hyped up the “China threat” to develop an actual U.S. deterrence, Chen Hong, an Australian and PIC studies expert at East China Normal University, told the publication. Chen added that the U.S. is attempting to mobilize countries and using them as logistics, military bases, or cannon fodder.
The publication also pointed out that before the announcement of negotiations with PNG, the U.S. also signed an MoU with Micronesia.
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Image and article originally from www.benzinga.com. Read the original article here.