Sébastien Le Belzic (correspondent in China) / Photo credit: AFP PHOTO / US NAVY / MASS COMMUNICATION SPECIALIST 1ST CLASS DEVIN M. LANGER 06:40, 05 June 2023

This weekend, a Chinese ship came dangerously close to a U.S. destroyer in the waters of the Taiwan Strait. The US Defense Department on Sunday denounced the "increasingly risky" actions of the Chinese military in Asia while Beijing accused Washington of wanting to kidnap countries in the region.

Weekend under high tension between the United States and China. After last week's clash between two military planes - one Chinese, the other American - over the China Sea, it was in the waters of the Taiwan Strait that the two powers looked at each other like dogs.

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This weekend, a Chinese ship came dangerously close to a US destroyer and the US Department of Defense on Sunday denounced the "increasingly risky" actions of the Chinese military in Asia. Beijing responded by castigating the creation of Western military alliances in the Asia-Pacific.

"NATO-like" alliances

The two giants have therefore started a war of words to accuse each other of inflaming tensions. In a particularly alarmist speech, Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu accused the United States of leading the world to disaster by provoking China in the military field. "A serious conflict or confrontation between China and the United States would be an unbearable pain for the world. The international community aspires to a stable development of US-China relations and worries about a potential conflict," he said.

In particular, he castigated the creation of "NATO-type" military alliances in the Asia-Pacific by predicting a "whirlwind" of conflicts. And accused Washington of wanting to kidnap the countries of the region and exaggerate the conflicts.