MIKE POMPEO HOLDS ‘FROSTY’ MEETINGS WITH CHINESE OFFICIALS
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi aired their grievances in the open on Monday during a brief visit to Beijing by Washington’s top diplomat, amid worsening relations.
While the exchange included typical diplomatic pleasantries, and the two officials emphasised the need for cooperation, their remarks before journalists at the start of their meeting at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guest House were unusually pointed.
“Recently, as the US side has been constantly escalating trade friction toward China, it has also adopted a series of actions on the Taiwan issue that harm China’s rights and interests, and has made groundless criticism of China’s domestic and foreign policies,” Wang said at a joint appearance with Pompeo.
“We believe this has been a direct attack on our mutual trust, and has cast a shadow on China-US relations,” he added. “We demand that the US side stop this kind of mistaken action.”
Wang also urged the United States to stop selling arms to Taiwan and to cut off official visits and military ties with the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.
Pompeo, who was briefing Wang following his visit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said, “The issues that you characterised, we have a fundamental disagreement.
“We have great concerns about the actions that China has taken, and I look forward to having the opportunity to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday North Korean leader Kim Jong -un was ready to allow international inspectors into the North’s nuclear and missile testing sites, one of the main sticking points over an earlier denuclearisation pledge.
Pompeo, who met Kim during a short trip to Pyongyang on Sunday, said the inspectors would visit a missile engine test facility and the Punggye-ri nuclear testing site as soon as the two sides agree on logistics. “There’s a lot of logistics that will be required to execute that,” he said in Seoul.
discuss each of those today because this is an incredibly important relationship.”
Pompeo and Wang openly disagreed over which side had called off a two-way security dialogue that had been planned in Beijing this month.
Last week, Vice President Mike Pence stepped up the US pressure campaign against Beijing, going beyond the trade war by accusing China of both “malign” efforts to undermine President Donald Trump ahead of next month’s congressional elections and of reckless military action in the South China Sea.
Pompeo also met China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi, a Politburo member who heads the Communist Party’s foreign affairs commission, though remarks before reporters took a more conventional tone, even as both agreed relations faced many challenges. Pompeo did not have a scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, a fact that a senior US State Department official on the trip said was not strange, even though top US officials often meet Chinese heads of state on visits.
But the senior US official said the US still expected cooperation with Beijing on efforts to denuclearise North Korea. “I would certainly expect so,” the official said. “That’s a very important issue, and they recognise that, and accept that, and realise that.”