Top diplomats from US, China hold ‘constructive’ talks on issues dividing them

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands during their meeting at the Munich Security Conference, in Munich, Germany, last week

Top diplomats from the U.S. and China on Friday held a “candid and constructive” discussion on issues vexing their strained relations over Taiwan, the situation in the South China Sea, Russia’s war against Ukraine and synthetic opioids, the State Department said.

The meeting between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference marked the latest and highest-level meeting between the two sides since U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks late last year in California.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Blinken emphasized the importance of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait as well as expanding on nascent counternarcotics efforts. Blinken also raised concerns about China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base that Washington sees as helping Moscow’s military operations against Ukraine.

“The two sides had a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional and global issues as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition in the relationship,” Miller said.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Wang called on the U.S. to remove sanctions against Chinese companies and individuals.

Wang emphasized that Washington’s policy of “de-risking” economically from Beijing “has become ‘de-Sinicizing,’ ‘building a tall fence’ and ‘de-coupling from China’” and “will come back to bite the U.S. itself,” according to a Ministry readout Saturday morning.

He also called on the U.S. to stop searches of Chinese nationals. Recently, Chinese state media published reports of Chinese citizens being searched at the U.S. border.

In one prominent case, a group of students led by their professor, Xie Tao from Beijing Foreign Studies University, were interrogated for three hours upon arriving at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, according to Xinhua. Xie is the dean of the School of International Relations and Diplomacy at the University.

Wang affirmed that cooperation to combat the spread of fentanyl was going “positively” and would continue, as well as the agreement to keep military-to-military communications. Both sides also discussed the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine.

Blinken “reiterated that the United States will stand up for our interests and values and those of our allies and partners,” Miller said, adding that the current situations in the Middle East and with North Korea had also been topics of conversation.

“Both sides recognized the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and (China) across a range of strategic issues, including consultations and high-level meetings in key areas in the coming months,” he said. MATTHEW LEE, MUNICH, MDT/AP

Wang Yi says trying to cut his country out of trade would be a historic mistake

China’s foreign minister told a gathering of international security policy officials Saturday that trying to shut China out of trade in the name of avoiding dependency would be a historic mistake.

Wang Yi spoke at the Munich Security Conference. Host Germany wants to avoid over-reliance on trade with an increasingly assertive China and diversify its supply of key goods in an approach it calls “de-risking.” That’s in line with the approach of other industrial powers in the Group of Seven, which has stressed that it doesn’t seek to harm China or thwart its development.

Beijing has criticized the strategy.

“Today … more people have come to realize that the absence of cooperation is the biggest risk,” Wang said through an interpreter. “Those who attempt to shut China out in the name of de-risking will make a historical mistake.”

“The world economy is like a big ocean that cannot be cut into isolated lakes,” he added. “The trend toward economic globalization cannot be reversed. We need to work together to make globalization more universally beneficial and inclusive.”

Wang also renewed China’s pushback against allegations of forced labor in the western Xinjiang region.

He complained of “fabricated information from different parties” and asserted that the aim is “to stop the development of China.” MDT/AP