Senior US, Chinese diplomats meet for ‘candid’ talks to build trust, open lines of communication

Washington DC [US], August 1 (ANI): As part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the bilateral relationship, China and America held a candid, substantive and productive discussion on Monday.
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel J Kritenbrink and National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran hosted PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director General of the North American and Oceanian Affairs Department Yang Tao at the Department of State in Washington, DC, read US Department of State press release.
The two sides also exchanged views on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including Russia’s war against Ukraine and cross-Strait issues. The meeting followed Secretary Blinken’s travel to Beijing and meeting in Jakarta with Director Wang Yi, among other recent bilateral engagements.
Last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The US Secretary stressed the importance of steady relations between the two nations after a period of simmering tensions.
After the meeting, Blinken had said both sides agreed on the need for the US and China to stabilize bilateral ties, before adding that Washington had “no illusions” about the challenges of managing the relationship. Blinken said the US was an advocate for “de-risking and diversifying” economic engagement with China, echoing an approach recently adopted by the G7.
After Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet L Yellen also visited Beijing. President Biden and Xi Jinping, Chinese Premier, agreed in a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, last November to try to stabilize relations, but tensions between the two nations ramped up when the Pentagon discovered and shot down a Chinese spy balloon that was floating over the continental United States in early February.
After the discovery of the spy balloon hovering in US skies, Blinken's visit to China in February was cancelled. In a statement on Wednesday, the State Department said that after detecting “anomalous activity,” the government took steps to secure the systems and “will continue to closely monitor and quickly respond to any further activity.”After the State Department reported the hack to Microsoft, the company found that the hackers had also targeted some 25 organizations, including government agencies, according to New York Times.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also visited Beijing, a day after the US climate envoy John Kerry completed his trip to China.
Both nations got into the chip war as China imposed export controls on the overseas sales of gallium and germanium, elements essential to making semiconductors, CNN Business reported.
China's trump card is seen as the counter-attack to potential US tightening of [its] AI chip ban. Even China doesn't like US interaction with Taiwan. China opposes any form of official interaction between the US and Taiwan. China’s Foreign Ministry urged the US to abide by the One-China principle and the three China-US joint communiqués.
“China firmly opposes any form of official interaction between the US and the Taiwan region, firmly opposes any visit by ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists to the US in any name or under whatever pretext, and firmly opposes any form of US connivance and support for 'Taiwan independence' separatists and their separatist activities,” China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning said during a press conference. (ANI)