First US-China meeting under Biden administration gets off to a rocky start

Officials trade barbs over Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang

The first high-level US-China meeting of the Biden administration got off to a fiery start on Thursday, with both sides levelling sharp rebukes of the others’ policies in a rare public display that underscored the level of bilateral tension.
 
The run-up to the talks in Anchorage, Alaska, which followed visits by US officials to allies Japan and South Korea, was marked by a flurry of moves by Washington that showed it was taking a tough stance, and by blunt talk from Beijing.
 
“We will...discuss our deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyber attacks on the United States, economic coercion of our allies,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told his Chinese counterparts in a highly unusual extended back-and-forth in front of cameras.

 

“I’m hearing deep satisfaction that the United States is back, that we’re reengaged with our allies and partners,” Blinken said. “I’m also hearing deep concern about some of the actions your government is taking. And we’ll have an opportunity to discuss those when we get down to work.” “Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability,” he said.
 
The Biden administration has made clear that it is looking for a change in behaviour from China, which has expressed hope to reset relations between the world’s two largest economies that worsened drastically under former President Donald Trump.

 
China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi responded with a 15-minute speech in Chinese while the US side awaited translation, lashing out over what he said was the United States’ struggling democracy, poor treatment of minorities, and criticising its foreign and trade policies.
 
“The US uses its military force and financial hegemony to carry out long-arm jurisdiction and suppress other countries,” said Yang.
 
“It abuses so-called notions of national security to obstruct normal trade exch­anges, and incite some countries to attack China,” he added. Yang said the US side “carefully orchestrated” the dialogue, according to an official translation reported by NBC. “I think we thought too well of the United States, we thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols,” Yang said, adding that “the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.”

 
Throughout Yang’s monologue, U.S. National Security Adviser Sullivan and other officials in the delegation passed notes to each other. At the end, Blinken held journalists in the room so he could respond.
 
With inputs from CNBC