Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday the United States is fuelling geopolitical tensions to uphold its \u201chegemony\u201d and warned of the risk of confrontation between major countries. Speaking at a defence forum in Beijing, Shoigu also said the US and its Asia-Pacific allies are undermining stability in the region. \u201cTo maintain its geopolitical and strategic dominance, the United States is deliberately undermining the basis of international security and strategic stability,\u201d Shoigu said, according to a simultaneous translation provided at the Xiangshan Forum, which is China\u2019s biggest annual event centred on military diplomacy.<\/p>\n
He added that the US and its Western allies are threatening Russia through NATO\u2019s \u201ceastward expansion.\u201d \u201cWestern countries aim to escalate the conflict with Russia and increase the risk of major country confrontation,\u201d he said. \u201cThis will lead to serious consequences.\u201d Turning to Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, Shoigu said Moscow was open to negotiations \u201cif conditions are right.\u201d Shoigu spoke directly after Zhang Youxia, China\u2019s second-ranking military official and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.<\/p>\n
Zhang opened the three-day event in the absence of Gen Li Shangfu, who was removed as China\u2019s defence minister last week after a two-month absence from public view. The Chinese government did not say why Li, who would have hosted the forum, was removed. Military representatives from dozens of countries are attending the event, which is an occasion for Beijing to underscore military cooperation with other nations and project regional leadership. The US is represented by a delegation led by Xanthi Carras, the Defence Department\u2019s principal official for issues related to China.<\/p>\n
Zhang said China was \u201cwilling to develop military ties with the U.S. on the basis of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.\u201d China suspended military communication with the U.S. in August 2022 to show its displeasure over a visit by former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory. Without directly naming the US, Zhang criticised \u201ccertain countries\u201d that \u201ckeep stirring up troubles around the world.\u201d \u201cThey deliberately create turbulences, meddle in regional affairs, interfere in other countries\u2019 internal affairs and instigate colour revolutions.\u201d Such countries \u201cgive fuel to the disputes by providing weapons and launching proxy wars\u201d and \u201calways unfairly support one side\u201d in regional disputes, he added.<\/p>\n
Zhang called for \u201ca political settlement on the Ukraine crisis\u201d and \u201can immediate ceasefire and stop of violence by parties in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and an early resumption of peace talks.\u201d China maintains that it is neutral in the Ukraine war, but it favours Russia in practice, with frequent state visits and joint military drills between the two nations. It similarly wants to project a mediator role in the Israel-Hamas war, though experts say Beijing\u2019s influence in the conflict is limited. Zhang reiterated threats by the Chinese government regarding any efforts toward Taiwan\u2019s independence, saying that \u201cno matter who tries to split Taiwan from China in any form, China and the Chinese military will never allow that to happen and will never be soft on them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday the United States is fuelling geopolitical tensions to uphold its \u201chegemony\u201d and warned\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":8725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186],"tags":[2044,158,2396,976,290,265,165,2128,2397,95],"class_list":["post-8717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-asia-pacific","tag-china","tag-military-drills","tag-nato","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-taiwan","tag-tensions","tag-us-hegemony","tag-usa"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}