China would prefer to avoid military action against Taiwan, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in an interview with NBC News.

Taiwan remains one of the most sensitive issues in relations between China and the United States.

The United States, like most countries in the world, does not maintain official diplomatic relations with the island, but it is its main international ally and largest arms supplier.

During today’s meeting, Chinese President Xi Jinping warned U.S. President Donald Trump that disagreements over Taiwan could jeopardize relations between the two countries and lead to “confrontations and even conflicts.”

“I think China would probably prefer for Taiwan to join it on its own, voluntarily,” Rubio said in an interview with NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas in Beijing. “In their ideal world, they would like there to be a vote or referendum in Taiwan that would decide in favor of reunification.”

At the same time, Rubio said that China has increased military pressure on Taiwan as part of a large-scale modernization of its armed forces.

“The pace of growth of China’s armed forces over the past ten years is unprecedented — absolutely unprecedented,” Rubio noted.

According to him, China has invested “billions and billions of dollars” in its navy alone, which, according to the Pentagon, already has more ships than the U.S. Navy.

At the same time, Rubio believes that Beijing is building up its military power not only because of Taiwan. “I think they ultimately have ambitions to project power all over the world in the same way that the United States does,” he said.

“In that respect, they still lag behind us, but nevertheless they are investing enormous sums,” Rubio added, calling China’s armed forces the second most powerful in the world.

Source: https://news.am/en/news/1035457