U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (right) speaks during a meeting with the Chinese side on March 18.
U.S.-China talks continued Friday with a final round of talks after a heated start Thursday (March 18). The State Department said Friday that U.S. officials had “serious discussions” with their Chinese counterparts in Alaska and would not let China’s “theatrics” distract the U.S. from laying out its principles and engaging in tough dialogue.
State Department spokesman: Chinese drama won’t stop U.S. from laying out principles
“We know that sometimes these diplomatic speeches (by the Chinese side) can be exaggerated, perhaps even for a domestic audience.” State Department spokeswoman Jalina Porter said at a news conference Friday (19).
“But we’re not going to let the theatrics on the other side stop us from doing what we intend to do in Alaska, which is to articulate our principles and our expectations and to have those difficult conversations that we need to have with the Chinese side as early as possible.” Porter said in reference to the Chinese side.
Porter said the U.S. and Chinese talks on Thursday were “very serious discussions.
On Thursday and Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi for two days of talks in Alaska.
During Thursday’s meeting, Blinken and Yang exchanged heated words in a public exchange.
The U.S. raised a range of security and human rights issues with the Chinese side, including the Communist Party’s persecution of Uighurs, its crackdown on Hong Kong, its economic coercion of allies, cyber attacks on the United States and its aggressive behavior toward Taiwan.
“All of these acts threaten global stability based on a normative order. So this is not just an internal matter, and we have an obligation to raise it at today’s meeting.” Blinken said at the meeting.
When the Chinese side spoke, they immediately issued a war-wolf rhetoric, and originally each had a two-minute opening statement each, but it turned out that Yang Jiechi alone spoke for 17 minutes without any translation in between, and when he finished and asked Wang Yi to continue, the translator said, “Let me translate first?” Yang Jiechi said, “Do you want to turn it over? Do it, it’s a test for the interpreters!”
Yang Jiechi said that the United States is not qualified to speak to China from above, and said that the United States should mind its own business instead of talking about human rights and democracy in the Communist Party of China.
CNN reported that a senior U.S. government official told reporters that the Chinese representatives came to Alaska with an acting purpose. He said the Chinese side seems to have focused on “public theater, not substance” and “focused on public theater (performance) and exaggeration. Why is this necessary? He added that Communist Party representatives’ “exaggerated diplomatic speeches are usually aimed at domestic audiences.
Senior U.S. and Chinese officials wrapped up talks in Alaska on Friday, as the controversial opening exchanges at the start of the Biden administration revealed the depth of tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
U.S. demands Beijing release Canadian citizen
Porter also reiterated the U.S. call for China to release Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig from “arbitrary and unacceptable” detention.
She said the U.S. is deeply concerned about Beijing’s decision to hold a closed-door trial for Spavor and the planned trial of Kang Mingkai that begins Monday (March 22). The two men have been charged with espionage by the Chinese Communist Party.
The Chinese Communist Party arrested Spavor and Kang Mingkai in December 2018, days after Canadian police detained huawei‘s chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou under a U.S. arrest warrant. Western countries have condemned the CCP’s capture of Canadian citizens Spavor and Kang Mingkai as aimed at launching hostage diplomacy against Canada.
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