Blinken: China is acting 'more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad'

Published May 03 2021 at 2:56 AM GMT

Key
Points

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told 60 Minutes in an interview that aired Sunday that the US is not trying to "contain China, to hold it back, to keep it down," but rather uphold the "rules-based order that China is posing a challenge to.
Anyone who poses a challenge to that order, we're going to stand up and defend it.
China, Blinken said, is "the one country in the world that has the military, economic, diplomatic capacity to undermine or challenge the rules-based order that we care so much about and are determined to defend.
When asked by CBS's Norah O'Donnell if he's ever seen China be "so assertive or aggressive militarily," Blinken said no, and over the last few years, he's witnessed China acting "more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad.
China, which has the world's largest navy, has three new warships patrolling the South China Sea and is flying jets over the western Pacific Ocean.