China-US ‘consensus’ on key issues

Beijing and Washington have reached “wide-ranging consensus” in their inaugural US-China Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Dialogue and pledged to ramp up cooperation in areas including counterterrorism, fighting transnational crime and cybercrime, and counternarcotics, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security said in a press release on Wednesday.

The dialogue was held in Washington and co-chaired by State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Guo Shengkun, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke.

In line with the consensus reached by President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump, the two sides agreed to increase dialogue and cooperation in the areas of law enforcement and cybersecurity and add to the outcome of Trump’s state visit to China in November, according to the release.

Guo said that proceeding from the dialogue, both sides should focus on collaboration and manage their differences, to ensure that law enforcement and cybersecurity cooperation will become a highlight of China-US relations in the new era, and make unyielding efforts to promote global security governance and build a community of shared future and security.

“China is ready to work together with the US side to increase cooperation in areas including counterterrorism, fighting cross-border crimes, bringing back fugitives and recovering their assets, counternarcotics and judicial assistance, and address the important concerns of the two countries in law enforcement,” Guo said, according to the news release.

Guo also said the two sides should continue their programmatic cooperation on fighting cybercrime, cyber-terrorism and other areas, to build a peaceful, secure, open, cooperative and orderly cyberspace.

The US side agreed that strengthening cooperation in law enforcement and cybersecurity is important to both countries and the world. The two sides face some common threats in both law enforcement and cybersecurity and have “broad common interests”, according to the Chinese press release.

The US side is willing to work with the Chinese side to push forward the handling of specific cases and produce more cooperative results to benefit the peoples of the two countries, according to the release.

Heather Nauert, spokeswoman for the US State Department, said on Wednesday: “Consistent with the results-oriented approach of this administration’s policy toward China, the dialogue facilitated forthright and detailed discussions and resulted in bilateral cooperation on priority issues including immigration, counterterrorism counter-narcotics, counterterrorism and also cybersecurity.”

With the conclusion of the Law Enforcement and Cybersecurity Dialogue, the first round of the four cabinet-level dialogues agreed to by the two presidents at their Mar-a-Lago meeting in Florida in April has been completed.

The inaugural high-level dialogue on diplomacy and security took place in June, and the highlevel dialogue on economy was held in July, followed by the first US-China Social and Cultural Dialogue last week.