China’s fiercely nationalistic Global Times newspaper took the lead in pushing back on criticism by high-level U.S. officials that the writers describe as an attempt by Washington to undermine Tuesday’s meeting between Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his counterpart Xi Jinping.
Global Times published a pair of scathing rebuttals to assertions by the top U.S. military commander, General Mark Milley, who said on Sunday that China is becoming more “aggressive” in the Asia-Pacific region. Incidentally, he made those remarks during a visit to Jakarta — a point noted by Global Times.