Biden administration officials said after Thursday’s (March 18) meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials that they are open to easing some visa restrictions imposed on Chinese citizens under Trump (Trump), but not to Chinese demands for easing tariffs and sanctions against Communist Party officials.
The second meeting of the day was fairly low-key after the top brass from the U.S. and China met face-to-face for 2 days in Alaska starting Thursday, after the first session of talks got into a hard fight in front of the cameras right from the start.
According to a Biden Administration briefing received Thursday night, a senior official said the day’s two sessions were “substantive, serious and direct,” with talks lasting far longer than the two hours originally scheduled.
In the briefing, the official said, “As we had planned, we outlined our interests and priorities in this meeting, and we heard the same from our Chinese counterparts.”
The official added that a third session of talks took place on Friday morning (19).
According to the earliest State Department statement, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Yang Jiechi and Wang Yi, the Chinese Communist Party‘s foreign affairs chief, and the U.S. side plans to discuss possible cooperation between the two countries on issues such as the Communist virus (New Coronavirus) Epidemic, climate change, and the economy, while also directly mentioning to the Chinese side that Xinjiang, Hong Kong China’s (CCP) coercive economic practices, as well as China’s advancement in the Taiwan Strait, pressure on Australia, and Beijing‘s malicious cyberattack practices.
By press Time, sources indicated that both the U.S. and China had highlighted many areas for closer cooperation, including climate change and pandemic relief.
Biden administration officials also said they are open to easing some visa restrictions imposed on Chinese citizens under Trump, but are not open to Chinese demands for easing tariffs and easing sanctions on Communist Party officials.
Before the talks, Beijing officials had suggested that if the talks went well, Communist Party President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden could hold an online summit next month during “Earth Day.
However, some in the Biden administration have been uneasy about meeting with China so soon, according to a person familiar with the matter, and their earliest reaction was that it might be a miscalculation.
Judging from the transcripts of live speeches released by the Chinese and U.S. sides after Thursday’s meeting, there was little basis for conversation between the two sides. Yang Jiechi’s Chinese speech alone took up 15 minutes, far more than the scheduled speaking time; his talk defied the facts, turning the often self-critical issue of race in the U.S. domestic media into a spear to attack the United States, and in turn urging the Biden administration to do a better job on U.S. human rights issues and leave the Chinese Communist Party’s human rights alone.
Yang Jiechi claimed that any attempt to change the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese (CCP) political system would be futile.
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