Agricultural university, University in Hangzhou, China

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has underscored ASEAN's essential role in the Indo-Pacific's regional architecture and highlighted the US' rejection of unlawful maritime claims of Beijing in the South China Sea.This comes as Blinken's met with foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Secretary-General during the Special ASEAN-US Foreign Ministerial Meeting."The Secretary reaffirmed the United States' commitment to ASEAN centrality and underscored ASEAN's essential role in the Indo-Pacific's regional architecture. The Secretary and the ASEAN foreign ministers pledged to continue building the ASEAN-US strategic partnership based on human rights and fundamental freedoms, economic prosperity, and strong people-to-people ties," US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement on Wednesday.The state department said that Blinken stressed the US commitment to working with ASEAN and international partners to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. He also emphasized the importance of taking bold action to address the climate crisis."The Secretary underscored the United States' rejection of the PRC's unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea and reiterated that the United States stands with Southeast Asian claimants in the face of PRC coercion," the statement added.Blinken's rejection of China's maritime claim comes a day after China on Monday protested the remarks made by the US State Secretary, reaffirming that Beijing's South China Sea (SCS) maritime claims are unlawful.Blinken, on the fifth anniversary of an international ruling concerning SCS, had said nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea.Earlier, Blinken had said China continues to coerce and intimidate Southeast Asian coastal states, threatening freedom of navigation in this critical global throughway.China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea and has overlapping territorial claims with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan.( With inputs from ANI )Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor

Agricultural UniversityFOLLOW

Agricultural university, Latest News

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat and Chief of National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) Anil Dhasmana on Thursday met Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami at Uttarakhand Sadan in New Delhi to discuss issues of developm ...

The US Senate on Wednesday (local time) passed a bill to ban all the products from Xinjiang over China's rights abuse in the region. ...

San Francisco, July 15 Microsoft has revealed that the massive SolarWinds cyber attack was operated by a group ... ...

At least 14 persons were trapped in a tunnel flooding on Thursday in Zhuhai City of south China's Guangdong Province. ...

Former US Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday called on US President Joe Biden to take more steps to keep up the pressure on China amid the "emerging cold war". ...

New Delhi, July 14 Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday walked out of the meeting of the Parliamentary ... ...

Dushanbe, July 14 China expects Afghanistan to make a broad and inclusive power arrangement, pursue a steady and ... ...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has underscored ASEAN's essential role in the Indo-Pacific's regional architecture and highlighted the US' rejection of unlawful maritime claims of Beijing in the South China Sea. ...