SpaceWar.com - Your World At War
China ready to fight US on trade but door open for talks: defence minister
Singapore, June 2 (AFP) Jun 02, 2019
China is ready to fight the US on trade but the door is still open for talks, the country's defence minister said Sunday.

"On the trade friction started by the US: if the US wants to talk, we will keep the door open. If they want to fight, we are ready," General Wei Fenghe told an international security dialogue in Singapore.

Beijing and Washington have been locked in a bruising tit-for-tat trade war, exchanging tariffs on $360 billion in two-way trade so far.

Wei is the first Chinese defence minister to attend the forum known as the Shangri-La Dialogue since 2011.

Washington and Beijing have been vying for influence in the Asia-Pacific region, which hosts potential flashpoints such as the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait.

Washington has been pushing back against Beijing's aggressive militarisation of the South China Sea, where China has staked "indisputable" ownership over almost the whole area and rejects partial claims by Taiwan, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Beijing is also regularly angered by US and other warships transiting through the Taiwan Strait, which it considers part of its territorial waters.


ADVERTISEMENT




Space News from SpaceDaily.com
UK opens competitive bid for GBP 75 million orbital cleanup mission
UK invests $191 mn in European satellite firm Eutelsat
Bearings Used in Space Technologies: Engineering for the Final Frontier

24/7 Energy News Coverage
Atomic 6 receives 2M Space Force award to advance next generation solar arrays
ESA and Neuraspace develop autonomous satellite navigation technologies
Planet secures 240 million euro satellite services contract with German government

Military Space News, Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defense
London, Paris tighten nuclear bond over US, Russia concerns
Iran says cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog will take 'new form'
Six killed in massive Russian drone, missile attack across Ukraine

24/7 News Coverage
Ancient zircon data reveals tectonic origin of Earth's first continental crust
Autonomous sub explores unexplored trench depths to reveal critical mineral clues
Europe launches first geostationary atmospheric sounder to boost extreme weather forecasts



All rights reserved. Copyright Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.