China flag row mars US-Russia arms talks

VIENNA: A row between the US and China has marred the first day of US-Russia disarmament talks, with the American delegation using a photo of Chinese flags to needle Beijing, prompting a sharp Chinese response.

The US has said the China, which possesses a growing nuclear arsenal, should be involved in the talks to replace the New Start treaty between the US and Russia which was agreed in 2010 and expires in February 2021.

But China has always refused the prospect of tripartite negotiations. As the negotiations got under way in Vienna on Monday the American envoy to the talks Marshall Billingslea tweeted that China was "a no-show".

"Beijing still hiding behind #GreatWallofSecrecy on its crash nuclear build-up, and so many other things," he wrote. The tweet was accompanied by a photo of the room where talks are taking place showing an empty negotiating table with Chinese flags on it.

That prompted an irritated response from Fu Cong, head of the department of arms control at the Chinese foreign ministry. "What an odd scene!" Fu tweeted in reply.

"Displaying Chinese National Flags on a negotiating table without China’s consent!" he added, asking: "Wonder how LOW you can go?" China’s mission in Vienna also ridiculed Billingslea’s tweet as "performance art".

According to the Kommersant daily, which cited Russian diplomatic sources, Russian representatives opposed the idea of having Chinese flags present in order to symbolise Beijing’s absence. The Americans therefore "put the flags of the three countries up and took photos" in order to publish the photos before the negotiations.

"Before the Russian delegation arrived, they removed it all," the paper reports. The US and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal between them and experts say the US’s insistence on involving China in the talks is an attempt to justify the possible abandoning of the treaty.

Meanwhile, EU on Monday warned China it would face "very negative consequences" if it presses ahead with a new security law for Hong Kong, stepping up pressure on Beijing over the controversial legislation.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and European Council chief Charles Michel told China’s top leaders of their "grave concern" over the new law, which critics say will curb the financial hub’s autonomy and freedoms.

The stern message, delivered during a video summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, adds to a chorus of international concern over Hong Kong, though so far Beijing has shown no sign of backing down on a law it says is necessary to maintain order.

"We expressed our grave concerns about the proposed national security law for Hong Kong," Michel told reporters after the talks. "We called on China to follow the promises made to the people of Hong Kong and the international community regarding Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy and guaranteed freedoms."

Foreign ministers from the G7 group of industrialised nations last week urged Beijing to reconsider the proposed law, which has raised concerns it will end Hong Kong’s relative freedoms and open the door to the kind of repression seen in mainland China.

Echoing the language of the G7 statement, von der Leyen said they had made it clear to the Chinese that the EU believes the imposition of the national security law breaches Beijing’s international commitments.

"The national security law risks seriously undermining the ‘one country, two systems’ principle and Hong Kong’s high degree of autonomy, which we wish to see stay in place." Von der Leyen said that she had warned the Chinese leaders that Hong Kong owes its economic success to its relative autonomy from Beijing. "So we also conveyed that China risks very negative consequences if it goes forward with imposing this law," she said.