US warns China’s ‘growing aggressiveness’ raises risk of conflict

China is growing more aggressive against the U.S. military around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday, warning Beijing that “it won’t be long before somebody gets hurt.”

The remarks from the White House come after the U.S. Navy on Monday criticized the Chinese military over an “unsafe” maneuver by one of its ships crossing the path of a U.S. warship at 150 yards of distance in the Taiwan Strait.

“There was absolutely no need for the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] to act as aggressively as they did,” Kirby said, speaking at the White House Press briefing, referring to the formal name of the Chinese military.

“These are part and parcel of an increasing level of aggressiveness by the PRC’s military, particularly in the area of the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea,” Kirby said.

The confrontation in the Taiwan Strait followed an incident over the South China Sea late last month, when a Chinese fighter jet came dangerously close to an American reconnaissance aircraft. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command criticized the Chinese as carrying out an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver.”

Kirby said the two incidents point to a “growing aggressiveness” by Beijing and pointed out that while air and maritime intercepts happen, including on the part of the U.S., China was acting outside the bounds of international laws and “rules of the road.”

“These two that you saw recently, and they have happened with more frequency than we’d like, not all of them are unsafe and unprofessional, but these two were.”

Kirby said the U.S. is urging China to “make better decisions about how they operate in international airspace and sea space.”

“We’re going to keep standing up for those rules of the road,” he said.

Still, Kirby said the U.S. is committed to keeping lines of communication open with the Chinese to “make it clear how unacceptable those particular intercepts are,” even as Beijing has rebuffed efforts to establish a crisis military-to-military channel with the U.S.

Beijing also rejected an official meeting between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and the Chinese Minister of Defense Li Shangfu during a defense summit in Singapore over the weekend.

Austin, speaking with reporters while traveling to India and France, called Chinese naval ships maneuvers “extremely dangerous.”

“I call upon the PRC’s leadership to really do the right things, to rein in that kind of conduct because I think accidents can happen that could cause things to spiral out of control,” he said.

China views as a provocation U.S. military air and seacraft transiting the Taiwan Strait, with Beijing claiming the waterway does not constitute international waters and instead is part of a larger dispute over Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over the self-governed island of Taiwan.

“China resolutely opposes the country concerned stirring up trouble in the Taiwan Strait and is firmly determined to defend its sovereignty and security and regional peace and stability,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin said in a press conference Monday, referring to the U.S.

The confrontation between the Chinese and U.S. warships comes as two senior American diplomats are in Beijing for rare, face-to-face talks on U.S. and China relations.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran held “candid and productive discussions,” Deputy State Department Spokesperson Vedant Patel said Monday, with cross Strait issues part of the talks.

The meetings were part of “ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and build on high level diplomacy between these two countries,” Patel said.

Communication between the U.S. and the PRC has narrowed amid a series of crises in the relationship.

This includes the Chinese severing certain military and diplomatic conversations with the U.S. in response to a visit by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Taiwan in August 2022.

In early February, the Biden administration canceled a high-stakes trip by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Beijing following the discovery of a Chinese spy balloon traversing the U.S.

CIA Director Bill Burns reportedly made a secret trip to China in May in an effort to push for renewed communication between Washington and Beijing.

While President Biden has predicted a “thaw” will happen in the relationship, the White House has not announced a phone call or meeting with the Chinese President Xi Jinping and has not rescheduled Blinken’s trip to the country.

Democrats and Republicans who have united over shared concern of the threats presented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have split over the administration’s push for communication with Beijing.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), ranking member of the House Select Committee on Competition with China, told CNN on Sunday that the Biden administration is right to pursue talks and stress to Beijing the risks over a potential conflict.

“The CCP believes that not having dialogue and having this very dangerous behavior on the part of its vessels and its aircraft will somehow discourage us, as well as our friends and partners, from exercising our freedom of navigation in that part of the world. But actually, in my humble opinion, it does the opposite,” he said.

“I think that they should come to the table, meet with folks like Secretary Austin and others and talk about, how do we lower the temperature, lower tensions and lower the possibility of conflict?”

But Rep. Mike Gallagher, (R-Wis.), chairman of the committee, said on Fox News that China is “not interested in being friends.”

“By pursuing détente with the CCP, we only invite aggression and they will only continue to test our boundaries,” he said.

Updated at 4:17 p.m.

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