From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
China rejects US ‘blackmail’ over nixed nuclear treaty
China is warning that it will “never accept any form of blackmail” after US President Donald Trump said his decision to withdraw from a nuclear pact with Russia was also linked to Beijing’s arsenal.
China is not a signatory to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which the United States signed with the then-Soviet Union in the 1980s, but Trump said Monday that Beijing should be included in the accord.
“Now that the United States want to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty, they start to inappropriately speak about other countries,” Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tells a regular press briefing.
“This approach of shifting the blame on others is utterly unjustifiable and unreasonable,” Hua says. “We will never accept any form of blackmail.”
— AFP
The Times of Israel Community.