WASHINGTON (AP) – US and China face new test in increasingly troubled relations when senior officials from the two countries meet in Alaska.
Ties between the two largest economies in the world have been broken for years and the Biden administration has not yet indicated that it is ready or willing to back down in difficult positions. taken from President Donald Trump. China has also not indicated that it is ready to ease the pressure it has had. Thus, the stage is prepared for a disputed first face-to-face meeting on Thursday.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will meet with China’s two top diplomats, State Councilor Wang Yi and Chinese Communist Party Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, in Anchorage, Alaska. Tough discussions are expected on trade, human rights in Tibet, Hong Kong, the western Xinjiang region of China, Taiwan, Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea and the coronavirus pandemic.
No agreement is expected.
“It’s really a one-time meeting,” a senior administration official said. “It’s not about resuming a specific dialogue mechanism or starting a dialogue process.” The official informed reporters before the meeting on condition of anonymity.
Blinken will attend the upcoming meeting from Japan and South Korea, where he and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin were promoting the Biden administration’s commitment to its treaty allies in Asia.
Just a day before the meeting, Blinken announced new sanctions on officials for China’s crackdown on democracy defenders in Hong Kong. In response, the Chinese intensified their rhetoric by opposing U.S. interference in internal affairs.
China unexpectedly criticized U.S. criticism of the decision to give a pro-Beijing committee the power to appoint more Hong Kong lawmakers, which reduces the proportion of those directly elected and ensures that only those who are truly loyal to Beijing. to run for office, effectively eliminating opposition figures from the political process.
The imposition of sanctions “fully exposes the sinister intention on the part of the US to interfere in China’s internal affairs, disrupt Hong Kong and impede China’s stability and development,” he told reporters on Wednesday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.
The White House set low expectations for the Blinken and Sullivan meeting, which officials say will be an initial opportunity to address intense disagreements.
The senior administration official described the talks as an opportunity for both parties to “take stock” of the relationship. The official said the two sides would not issue a joint statement after the meeting and that no important announcements are expected to come out of the talks.
China’s ambassador to the United States also downplayed expectations of the Alaska meeting in comments to Chinese media on Wednesday, while holding out hope that it would pave the way for better communication.
“Naturally, we do not expect a round of dialogue to resolve all the issues between China and the United States and we do not expect too much,” Cui Tiankai said in a transcript of his comments posted on the embassy website.
“My wish is that this can be a start and that the two sides can start a process of frank, constructive and realistic dialogue,” Cui said. “If we can get it, I think this exchange will be successful.”
Blinken, in Japan before heading to South Korea and Alaska, said the U.S. “will back down if necessary when China uses coercion or aggression to make its way.”
“The relationship with China is very complex,” he said. “It has contradictory aspects; it has competitive aspects; it has cooperative aspects. But the common denominator when dealing with each of these is to make sure we approach China from a position of strength, and that strength begins with our alliance, with our solidarity, because it is truly a the only asset we have and China does not ”. t. “
The Chinese are not backing down.
At the United Nations on Wednesday, they broke the U.S. human rights record, citing what they called U.S. failures against COVID-19 that cost “hundreds of thousands of lives,” as well as racial discrimination, police brutality and a ” malignant past of genocide “. Jiang Duan, an adviser to the Chinese mission in Geneva, voiced criticism at the end of the review of the U.S. rights registry at the UN Human Rights Council.
The administration has held a series of talks with Pacific allies, including Biden’s virtual summit with Quad leaders – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – before engaging in high-level talks with China.
Trump had been proud to forge what he saw as a strong relationship with Xi Jinping. But the relationship disintegrated after the coronavirus pandemic spread from Wuhan Province to the rest of the world and triggered an economic and public health disaster.
In addition to backing China’s aggressiveness in the Indo-Pacific and its human rights record, Biden faces other thorny issues in the relationship.
But so far it has refused to rescind hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs imposed by Trump against China or lift bans on Chinese applications.
Biden, however, seeks China’s cooperation to put pressure on North Korean Kim Jong Un on his nation’s nuclear program.
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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Washington, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, and Zen Soo in Hong Kong contributed to this report.