The United States and China publicly rebuked each other in the first face-to-face talks between senior officials from the two countries since Joe Biden took office, with one senior US official accusing their counterparts of being “intent on grandstanding” and “violating protocol”.
The strained relations of the global rivals were put on rare public display in Alaska on Thursday during a highly unusual extended back-and-forth in front of the cameras when US secretary of state Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan opened their meeting with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and State Councilor Wang Yi.
“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,” Blinken said in blunt public remarks at the start of the first meeting. “Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability,” he said.
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Yang responded with a 15-minute speech in Chinese while the US side awaited translation, in which he lashed out at what he called a struggling democracy in the US, poor treatment of minorities and foreign and trade policies.
“The United States uses its military force and financial hegemony to carry out long-arm jurisdiction and suppress other countries,” Yang said. “It abuses so-called notions of national security to obstruct normal trade exchanges, and incite some countries to attack China,” he added.
“Let me say here that in front of the Chinese side, the United States does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China from a position of strength,” Yang said.
“… the US side was not even qualified to say such things, even 20 years or 30 years back, because this is not the way to deal with the Chinese people …”
The US had been looking for a change in behaviour from China, which earlier this year expressed hope for a reset to sour relations. However, on the eve of the talks, Beijing presaged a contentious meeting, with its ambassador to Washington saying the US was full of illusions if it thought China would compromise.
What is typically a few minutes of opening remarks open to press for such high-level meetings lasted for more than an hour, and the two delegations tussled about when media would be ushered out of the room.
One senior US official, who did not want to be identified by name, told reporters: “The Chinese delegation … seems to have arrived intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics over substance. They made that clear by promptly violating protocol.”
Ruffini
(@EenaRuffini)
Here is the moment when the previously icy talks between China And the US almost melted down— after a series of pointed statements from each side & both trying to have the last word. The press were ushered out but the Chinese wanted to respond. @jakejsullivan @SecBlinken pic.twitter.com/842naeVIDx
March 18, 2021
The US would continue with its meeting as planned, the official said, adding that “exaggerated diplomatic presentations often are aimed at a domestic audience”.
Before taking office, Biden had been attacked by Republicans who feared his administration would be too soft on China. But in recent weeks, top Republicans have given the president a gentle nod for revitalising relations with US allies in order to confront China, a shift from former president Donald Trump’s go-it-alone “America First” strategy.
While much of Biden’s China policy is still being formulated, including how to handle the tariffs on Chinese goods implemented under Trump, his administration has so far placed a stronger emphasis on democratic values and allegations of human rights abuses by China.
Even the status of the meeting in Anchorage has become a sticking point, with China insisting it is a “strategic dialogue”, harkening back to bilateral mechanisms of years past. The US side has explicitly rejected that, calling it a one-off session.
On the eve of the talks, the US issued a flurry of actions directed at China, including a move to begin revoking Chinese telecoms licences, subpoenas to multiple Chinese information technology companies over national security concerns, and updated sanctions on China over a rollback of democracy in Hong Kong.
Yang questioned Blinken on whether the sanctions were announced ahead of the meeting on purpose. “Well, I think we thought too well of the United States, we thought that the US side would follow the necessary diplomatic protocols,” he said.
China, however, indicated this week that it is set to begin trials of two Canadians detained in December 2018 on spying charges soon after Canadian police detained Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of telecoms equipment company Huawei Technologies, on a US warrant.
Meng awaits the results of a case that could see her extradited to the US, but China’s foreign ministry rejected assertions that the timing of the trials was linked to the Anchorage talks.
Washington has said it is willing to work with China when it is in the interests of the United States and has cited the fight against climate change and the coronavirus pandemic as examples.
On Thursday, Blinken said Washington hoped to see China uses its influence with North Korea to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons.
The largest group representing exiled Uighurs has written to Blinken urging him to demand that Beijing close its internment camps in the Xinjiang region, where UN experts say that more than a million members of the ethnic group and other Muslim minorities have been held.
Blinken had pledged to raise the issue, his State Department having upheld a Trump administration determination that Beijing was perpetrating genocide in Xinjiang, something China vehemently denies.
Yang said China firmly opposed US interference in its internal affairs.
The talks in Anchorage are expected to continue on Friday.
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