Putin: US fanning Asia tension with Taiwan visit, ‘Nato-like’ Aukus

LONDON: Russian President Putin accused the US on Tuesday of whipping up tensions in Asia, describing a visit to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a “thoroughly planned provocation”. In a speech to a Moscow security conference, Putin also cited the Aukus security pact between Australia, the UK and the US as evidence of Western attempts to build a Nato-style bloc in the Asia Pacific region. His comments showed Moscow is trying to build new global alliances to counter what Putin called Western hegemony and neo-colonialism.

Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was “not just a trip by a single irresponsible politician, but part of a purposeful, conscious US strategy to destabilise and sow chaos in the region and the world”, Putin said. “We also see that the collective West is seeking to extend its bloc system to the Asia-Pacific region by analogy with Nato in Europe. For this purpose, aggressive military-political alliances are being formed, such as Aukus and others. ” “They need conflicts to retain hegemony,” Putin said. “That’s why they have turned the Ukrainian people into cannon fodder. The situation in Ukraine shows that the US is trying to drag the conflict out, and it acts in exactly the same way trying to fuel conflicts in Asia, Africa and Latin America. ”