BEIJING, China
\nChina\u2019s defense minister accused the United States on Sunday of trying to \u201chijack\u201d the support of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to turn them against Beijing, saying Washington is seeking to advance its own interests \u201cunder the guise of multilateralism.\u201d
\nDefense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe lashed out at U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, rejecting his \u201csmearing accusation\u201d the day before at the Shangri-La Dialogue that China was causing instability with its claim to the self-governing island of Taiwan and its increased military activity in the area.
\nAustin had stressed the need for multilateral partnerships with nations in the Indo-Pacific, which Wei suggested was an attempt to back China into a corner.
\n\u201cNo country should impose its will on others or bully others under the guise of multilateralism,\u201d he said. \u201cThe strategy is an attempt to build an exclusive small group in the name of a free and open Indo-Pacific to hijack countries in our region and target one specific country \u2014 it is a strategy to create conflict and confrontation to contain and encircle others.\u201d
\nChina has been rapidly modernizing its military and seeking to expand its influence and ambitions in the region, recently signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands that many fear could lead to a Chinese naval base in the Pacific, and breaking ground this past week on a naval port expansion project in Cambodia that could give Beijing a foothold in the Gulf of Thailand.
\nLast year U.S. officials accused China of testing a hypersonic missile, a weapon harder for missile defense systems to counter, but China insisted it had been a \u201croutine test of a spacecraft.\u201d
\nAnswering a question about the test on Sunday, Wei came the closest so far to acknowledging it was, indeed, a hypersonic missile, saying, \u201cAs for hypersonic weapons, many countries are developing weapons and I think there\u2019s no surprise that China is doing so.\u201d
\n\u201cChina will develop its military,\u201d he added. \u201cI think it\u2019s natural.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BEIJING, China China\u2019s defense minister accused the United States on Sunday of trying to \u201chijack\u201d the support of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to turn them against Beijing, saying Washington is seeking to advance its own interests \u201cunder the guise of multilateralism.\u201d Defense Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe lashed out at U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266281,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[8542,18,8543,444],"class_list":{"0":"post-266267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-asian-countries","9":"tag-china","10":"tag-hijack","11":"tag-us"},"yoast_head":"\n