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Beijing says US-backed Asia plan seeks to 'decouple' countries from China
Speaking at a regular press briefing, ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the Indo Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) serves US interests and seeks to exclude other countries.
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin takes a question at the Foreign Ministry briefing in Beijing on November 9, 2020. (AFP/Greg Baker)
C
hina's foreign ministry said on Wednesday a US-backed economic plan for Asia seeks to decouple countries from the Chinese economy, but many countries are worried about the "huge cost" of doing so.
Speaking at a regular press briefing, ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the Indo Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) serves US interests and seeks to exclude other countries.
US President Joe Biden launched this plan on Monday. Initial founding countries include Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and the United States, but not China.
Meanwhile, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Wednesday the United States should return to a regional trade pact it quit in 2017 if it wanted to engage economically with the Indo-Pacific region.
Speaking on a visit to Washington, Ardern said that multinational agreement, now known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), was the "gold standard," but New Zealand would continue to push for greater access to the US market even without it.
"If the United States is looking to engage in our region economically, then that is the place to do it," she said of the CPTPP, which the Biden administration has been reluctant to return to given concerns about the impact on U.S. jobs.
Ardern told reporters the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), which US President Joe Biden launched this week in Tokyo with 12 other countries, including her own, was a "starting point for a discussion" on digital issues, climate issues, and on reducing frictions.
