China 'Strongly' Condemns US Strike on Iran's Nuclear Program

Watch China 'Strongly' Condemns US Strike on Iran's Nuclear Program - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Well, I would encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them about that because they

00:03heavily depend on the Straits of Hormuz for their oil. If they do that, it'll be another

00:07terrible mistake. It's economic suicide for them if they do it. And we retain options to deal with

00:12that. But other countries should be looking at that as well. It would hurt other countries'

00:15economies a lot worse than ours.

00:20That was U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio there telling China it should ensure Iran keeps

00:25the Strait of Hormuz open to shipping. Beijing, meanwhile, has criticized the U.S. strike on

00:30Iranian nuclear facilities, saying again that it's willing to join international efforts to

00:35restore peace in the Middle East. Let's bring in our China correspondent, Min Min Lo, and tell us a bit

00:39more about that Beijing response. Yeah, Beijing's response has been very consistent. It hasn't

00:43really changed. It's condemned Israel's attack. It's also condemning the U.S. attacks as well.

00:48There is a Global Times editorial criticizing the U.S. for escalating tensions even further,

00:54even though China has previously called on the U.S. to do more to calm the conflict. But I guess

00:58hitting these nuclear sites in Iran is not their vision of calming the conflict. In fact,

01:03the Global Times editorial is saying that U.S. is escalating the level of weaponry being used by

01:09using these bunker buster bombs to achieve what Israel cannot. And Iran is likely to see that as an

01:15act of provocation. It's going to cause the conflict to possibly even spill over to the wider region.

01:20And that's what they are deeply worried about.

01:24Min Min, the topic is also being discussed widely across social media. Could you just give us a

01:31glimpse of what the sort of more pertinent ones are?

01:36Yes, this is very interesting to watch because people are discussing this very widely on Chinese

01:40social media. In fact, the top trending hashtag on Weibo today is that Iran has set an example for

01:47the rest of the world. And the gist of the comments there, they're all saying that Iran essentially is

01:52is quite naive in some ways to believe that the U.S. is a trustworthy party here. And here's a comment

01:58that says, first, Iran was deceived by the U.S. into some negotiation, which made Iran lose its

02:04vigilance. If we can flip back to the previous post. And then it was attacked by an American ally.

02:09It was resisting the attack. Iran had hoped for mediation from the U.S. But soon American bombing

02:14arrived. So it was all about how Iran is being squeezed by the U.S. And the lesson here for many

02:20Chinese people is that these appeasement tactics, they don't work. And only by fighting

02:26reasonably can you achieve your own, protect your own sovereignty. That's the lesson that many

02:31Chinese people are taking. But that said, China does have this longstanding policy of non-interference.

02:37So China is unlikely to wade into that conflict unless its direct sovereignty is being threatened.