US, China spar in first face-to-face meeting of Biden admin
Live MintTop US and Chinese officials offered sharply different views of the world on Thursday as the two sides met face-to-face for the first time since President Joe Biden took office. In unusually pointed remarks for a staid diplomatic meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi took aim at each other's countries' policies at the start of two days of talks in Alaska. The meetings in Anchorage were a new test in increasingly troubled relations between the two countries, which are at odds over a range of issues from trade to human rights in Tibet, Hong Kong and China's western Xinjiang region, as well as about Taiwan, China's assertiveness in the South China Sea and the coronavirus pandemic. “Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability,” Blinken said of China's actions in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and of cyber attacks on the United States and economic coercion against US allies.