'US deliberately stirs up issues': Russia backs China on Taiwan & Indo-Pacific, blames US for tensions

Russia has backed China completely on the issue of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region — which it calls Asia-Pacific.

As the People’s Republic of China (PRC) turned 75 this week, Russia reiterated support to the Communist regime and instead blamed the United States and allies for stoking tensions in the region.

In an article for Russian regime’s newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia stood alongside China over Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region and it is the “deliberate attempts” of the United States that inflame tensions around Taiwan, according to Reuters.

Lavrov reiterated the commitment to the ‘One China’ policy and said that the stand on Taiwan has been unchanged over time.

“The United States and its satellites deliberately stir up the situation in the Strait of Taiwan. In violation of the ‘One China’ principle that they recognise, they are strengthening ties with the island’s administration. Russia’s position on the Taiwan issue has been unchanged support for China’s territorial integrity, expressed at different levels, including at the very top,” said Lavrov, as per the news agency.

Projecting the united front, Lavrov said that Russia and China held close positions “in assessing the risks associated with the advance of the West in the Asia-Pacific region”.

China considers the self-ruled island of Taiwan as a breakaway province and is committed to its reunification with the mainland. It has not ruled out the use of force for such reunification. In recent years, as China has become more aggressive by the day in the South China Sea under Xi Jinping and has unleashed ramped up hegemonic designs in the Indo-Pacific region, fears have risen that China may invade Taiwan at any time in coming years. As Taiwan is a key US partner and the global manufacturing hub of the most advanced semiconductors.

The comments regarding Taiwan come days after US President Joe Biden approved military assistance worth $567 million to Taiwan.

In recent years, China and Russia have projected their relationship as one with no limits. They have not just backed each-other diplomatically, but China is central to Russia's economic rescue amid the ongoing Ukraine War and is critical to the war-waging capabilities on the back of its export of dual-use technologies. The two have also carved out an anti-West bloc with fellow authoritarian regimes of North Korea and Iran to systematically undermine the West.

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In his article, Lavrov also went on to blame NATO. He said that that the system of security in Europe and Euro-Atlantic affairs had been “fully discredited” by the United States and NATO, as per the agency.

Lavrov called for a “new architecture for Eurasian security” based on the principle of “regional solutions for regional problems”, according to the agency.

Lavrov went on to praise China’s “balanced and consistent” approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine and said its initiatives rightly called for the elimination of its root causes, including NATO’s eastward expansion and the creation of an “anti-Russian military bridgehead in Ukraine”, as per the agency.