U.S., China wrap up testy talks
Fundamentally at odds in a number of areas, Blinken says
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Top U.S. and Chinese officials wrapped up two days of talks in Alaska on Friday after having traded sharp and unusually public barbs over vastly different views of each other and the world in their first face-to-face meeting since President Joe Biden took office.
The two sides finished the meetings after an opening session Thursday in which they attacked each other. The U.S. accused the Chinese delegation of “grandstanding,” and Beijing fired back saying there was a “strong smell of gunpowder and drama” that was entirely the fault of the Americans.
“We got a defensive response,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after the meetings concluded. “We wanted to share with them the significant concerns that we have about a number of the actions that China has taken, and behaviors exhibiting concerns, shared by our allies and partners. And we did that. We also wanted to lay out very clearly, our own policies, priorities and worldview. And we did that, too.”
“There are a number of areas where we are fundamentally at odds,” he said. “It’s no surprise that when we raised issues we got a defensive response, but also we had a very candid conversation and an expansive agenda.”
In separate comments, Chi- nese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi said dialogue was the only way to resolve differences, but he also made clear that Beijing had no intention of backing down on any issue.
“China is going to safeguard our national sovereignty, security and our interests to develop China,” he said. “It is an irreversible trend,” he said.
“We hope the United States is not going to underestimate China’s determination to defend its territory, safeguard its people and defend its righteous interests,” he said.
As they opened the talks, Blinken said the Biden administration is united with its allies in pushing back against Chinese authoritarianism. In response, Yang accused Washington of hypocrisy on human rights and other issues.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian, speaking later in Beijing, said Blinken and National security adviser Jake Sullivan had provoked Chinese officials into making a “solemn response” after U.S. officials made “groundless attacks” against China.
“It was the U.S. side that … provoked the dispute in the first place, so the two sides had a strong smell of gunpowder and drama from the beginning in the opening remarks. It was not the original intention of the Chinese side,” Zhao told reporters at a daily briefing.
A senior Biden administration official said that despite the public airing of differences, the initial closed discussions had been “substantive, serious and direct” and lasted far longer than the two hours that been planned.
Meetings between the Chinese and the Americans have been testy before, but the balance of power between the two countries has changed.
For decades, China approached U.S. governments from positions of weakness, economically and militarily. That forced it at times to accede to American demands, however grudgingly, whether it was to release detained human-rights advocates or to accept Washington’s conditions for joining the World Trade Organization.
China today feels far more assured in its ability to challenge the United States and push for its own vision of international cooperation. It is a confidence embraced by China’s leader since 2012, Xi Jinping, who has used the phrase “the East is rising, and the West is declining.”
The shift in China’s strategy is not simply rhetorical, or “grandstanding” for a domestic audience, as a senior official traveling with Blinken suggested.
On the litany of issues Blinken has raised before and during the talks, China’s leaders have refused to give any ground. They have done so despite international criticism and even intensifying punitive measures imposed by the Trump and now Biden administrations.
In the latest round, the State Department announced this week that it would impose sanctions on 24 Chinese officials for their role in eroding Hong Kong’s electoral system. The timing of the move, just as the Chinese were preparing to depart for Alaska, contributed to the acrimony.
“This is not supposed to be the way one welcomes his guests,” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said in remarks in Alaska.
The Biden administration’s stated strategy for dealing with China has been to build coalitions of countries to confront and deter its behavior. Biden’s team has argued that while President Donald Trump correctly diagnosed China as a rising threat, his policies and mistreatment of allies undercut the effort to counter it.