US, China hold high-level talks, highlighting differences

TIANJIN – High-level face-to-face talks betwixt U.S. and Chinese diplomats connected Monday highlighted crisp differences betwixt the sides, though the code appeared somewhat little contentious than astatine their past meeting.

China issued a agelong database of demands and complaints, accusing the U.S. of trying to incorporate and suppress China’s development, portion America brought up its concerns astir quality rights and different issues, and urged practice connected matters including clime change, Iran and North Korea.

Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng urged the U.S. “to alteration its highly misguided mindset and unsafe policy."

Xie blamed the U.S. for a “stalemate” successful bilateral relations, saying immoderate Americans represent China arsenic an “imagined enemy," according to an authoritative summary of his remarks during the meeting.

Xie met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman astatine a closed-off edifice edifice successful Tianjin, astir an hr from Beijing. Sherman is the highest-ranking U.S. authoritative to sojourn China since President Joe Biden took bureau six months ago.

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Relations betwixt the countries deteriorated sharply nether Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, and the 2 sides remain astatine odds implicit a big of issues including technology, cybersecurity and quality rights.

Xie said China wants to question communal crushed portion shelving differences, highlighting a disagreement successful the basal attack to their relationship. The Biden medication has said it volition cooperate successful areas specified arsenic clime but face China successful others specified arsenic quality rights, describing the narration arsenic collaborative, competitory and adversarial.

In a telephone interview with The Associated Press pursuing the talks, Sherman said, “This is simply a process wherever we’ve taken different step. We came to these conversations not expecting immoderate circumstantial outcomes.”

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Sherman held abstracted meetings Monday with some Xie, who is successful complaint of U.S.-China relations, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Her sojourn follows a highly fractious archetypal gathering successful March successful Anchorage, Alaska, wherever Wang and seasoned Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi exchanged angry words with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and nationalist information advisor Jake Sullivan.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price described Sherman's gathering with Wang arsenic a “frank and unfastened treatment astir a scope of issues, demonstrating the value of maintaining unfastened lines of connection betwixt our 2 countries."

Price said Sherman raised concerns astir quality rights, including successful Hong Kong and Tibet, and what helium called the “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity successful Xinjiang." He said Sherman besides raised issues of media entree and state of the press, Beijing’s behaviour successful cyberspace and actions toward Taiwan and successful the East and South China Seas.

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Sherman discussed cases of American and Canadian citizens detained successful China oregon nether exit bans, and reiterated concerns astir China’s unwillingness to cooperate with the World Health Organization and let a second-phase probe wrong China into COVID-19’s origins, Price said.

At a regular briefing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said China delivered of agelong database of demands, including withdrawing visa restrictions connected Chinese Communist Party members and their families, sanctions connected Chinese leaders, officials and authorities departments and lifting visa restrictions connected Chinese students.

He said Washington should extremity measures against Chinese enterprises, students, acquisition outlets and media and retreat the extradition petition for Meng Wanzhou, the Huawei enforcement who was detained successful Canada.

Sherman said the sides did not sermon a imaginable gathering betwixt Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which immoderate observers person speculated could instrumentality spot connected the sidelines of the G-20 acme successful Rome astatine the extremity of October.

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America’s No. 2 diplomat travels adjacent to Oman, wherever she volition conscionable Deputy Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalifa Al Harthy connected Tuesday. She met with officials successful Japan and South Korea past week.

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Moritsugu reported from Beijing.

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