KARUIZAWA/BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is urging her colleagues from the USA and China, Antony Blinken and Qin Gang, to meet quickly. “In my view, it would be important for this meeting to take place in a timely manner,” said the Greens politician on Sunday evening on the ZDF program “Berlin direct”. She made that clear during her visit to China and also at the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Japan. Baerbock was connected from there.
With a view to Taiwan and the question of its possible support from the G7 in the event of an escalation of the conflict with China, Baerbock said: “For us it’s about de-escalating. And that’s why speculating about ‘what if..’ Wrong. But you also have to make it clear that we would not tolerate a military escalation.” At the G7 meeting, the importance of American-Chinese dialogue formats was also discussed.
Blinken canceled a visit to China at short notice in early February after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was discovered in US airspace. This incident also clouded the relationship between the two countries.
The G7 meeting on Monday will deal with deliberations on China’s growing aggression in the Indo-Pacific, the Russian war in Ukraine and the status of the nuclear negotiations with Iran./seb/DP/he