China's foreign minister Wang Yi warned Asian nations to avoid being used as 'chess pieces' by big powers

JAKARTA: China's foreign minister Wang Yi warned on Monday (Jul 11) in a policy speech in the Indonesian capital that countries should avoid being used as "chess pieces" by major powers in a region that he said was at risk of being reshaped by geopolitical factors.

Addressing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat in Jakarta, Wang, who was speaking through a translator, said many countries in the region were under pressure to take sides.

"We should insulate this region from geopolitical calculations … from being used as chess pieces from major power rivalry and from coercion," he said, 

He added: "The future of our region should be in our own hands."

Southeast Asia has long been an zone of geopolitical grinding between major powers given its key significance, with nations within the locale presently wary of being caught within the middle of US-China rivalry. 

 Heightening pressures, China claims nearly the complete South China Ocean as its domain based on what it says are chronicled maps, putting it at chances with a few ASEAN nations which say the claims are conflicting with universal law.

Wang's speech comes just days after he gone to a G20 foreign ministers' meeting in Bali and in the midst of intense Chinese strategy that has seen him make a string of stops over the region in later weeks. 

On the sidelines of the G20, Wang held a five-hour meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with both describing their first in-person talks since October as "candid".

Wang said on Monday he had told Blinken both sides ought to talk about the establishment of rules for positive interactions and to mutually maintain regionalism within the Asia-Pacific. 

"The center components are to back ASEAN centrality, maintain the existing territorial organization system, regard each other's legitimate rights and interests within the Asia-Pacific rather than pointing to offend or contain the other side," Wang said.

Responding to a question about Taiwan after his speech, Wang said Washington "by distorting and hollowing out the One China policy, is trying to play the Taiwan card to disrupt and contain China's development".

Tensions between Beijing and Taipei have escalated in recent months as China's military conducted repeated air missions over the Taiwan Strait, the waterway separating the island from China.

China considers Taiwan its "sacred" domain and has never disavowed the utilize of constrain to guarantee possible unification. 

 Washington says it remains committed to its One China arrangement and does not empower autonomy for Taiwan, but the Joined together States is required to supply Taiwan with the implies to guard itself beneath its US Taiwan Relations Act.

"The two sides across the (Taiwan) Strait will enjoy peaceful development. But when the one-China principle is arbitrarily challenged or even sabotaged, there will be dark clouds or even ferocious storms across the strait," Wang said.