US and China spar in first face-to-face meeting under the Biden administration
Top U.S. and Chinese officials are set to conclude their talks in Alaska and find a way to cooperate after a dramatic opening round that revealed the depth of tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
The officials from the two sides leveled sharp rebukes of each others’ policies in the first high-level face-to-face meeting between the U.S. and China since President Joe Biden took office.
After the opening on Thursday, the two sides traded barbs, with the U.S. accusing the Chinese delegation of “grandstanding” for domestic consumption and Beijing firing back Friday by saying there was a “strong smell of gunpowder and drama” in the room that was the fault of the Americans.
The US claimed the Chinese delegation had broken an agreement to keep opening statements to two minutes, with one US official suggesting it “seem[ed] to have arrived intent on grandstanding, focused on public theatrics and dramatics over substance”. The Chinese state media blamed US officials for speaking too long and being “inhospitable”.
The meeting in Anchorage was attended by the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, U.S. national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and the state councillor Wang Yi.
Blinken said that the United Sates would discuss its deep concerns over human rights issues in China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the cyberattacks on the United States and economic coercion toward the American allies, saying “Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability.”
Reacting strongly to the remarks, Yang said, China firmly opposed the U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs. “We have expressed our staunch opposition to such interference, and we will take firm actions in response.” On the issue of cyberattacks, the Chinese official accused that “whether it’s the ability to launch cyberattacks or the technologies that could be deployed, the United States is the champion in this regard.”
Yang also demanded the U.S. stop pushing its own version of democracy at a time when the United States itself has been roiled by domestic discontent. “We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world,” he said. “Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.”
Despite the acrimonious public airing of differences, it is believed that the closed-door discussions had been “substantive, serious and direct” and lasted far longer than the two hours than planned. The meetings in Anchorage, which would conclude on Friday.
