China has slammed the US for "willfully" disposing of assets that belong to the Afghan people without their consent, stating that the move was no different from the conduct of bandits.
"Without the consent of the Afghan people, the US willfully disposes of assets that belong to the Afghan people, even keeping them as its own. This is no different from the conduct of bandits," said China Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Wang Wenbin's during a regular press conference in Beijing.
"This latest example has once again laid bare that the rules-based order the US claims to champion is not the kind of rules and order to defend the weak and uphold justice, but to maintain its own hegemony," added Wang.
Accusing the US of triggering the Afghan crisis, Wang said that the US should not exacerbate the suffering of the Afghan people.
"It should unfreeze their assets, lift unilateral sanctions on Afghanistan as soon as possible, and assume its due responsibility to ease the humanitarian crisis in the country," he added.
China's response came after US President Joe Biden on Friday (local time) signed an executive order to free 7 billion US dollars out of more than 9 billion frozen Afghan assets, splitting the money between humanitarian aid for Afghanistan and a fund for 9/11 victims.
Afghanistan's banking system remains crippled after the takeover of Kabul by the Taliban in mid-August last year. A combination of a suspension of foreign aid, the freezing of Afghan government assets, and international sanctions on the Taliban have plunged the country, already suffering from high poverty levels, into a full-blown economic crisis.
( With inputs from ANI )
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