The United States and China are “fundamentally at odds”, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday after the conclusion of two days of talks, he and National Secretary Adviser Jake Sullivan, held with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage, Alaska.
Blinken also said the Chinese were “defensive” when the US side confronted them with “concerns” about Muslim-majority Xinjiang province, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Taiwan.
Blinken and Sullivan met China’s Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi, who is the top Chinese diplomat and State Councilor Wang Yi over Thursday and Friday in a first high-level meeting between the two countries after President Joe Biden took office.
The meetings were expected to be contentious as they took place in the shadow of the first sanctions recently imposed by the Biden administration on China over Hong Kong.
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