US-China talks signal rocky start to relations under Joe Biden
Live MintU.S. and Chinese officials concluded on Friday what Washington called "tough and direct" talks in Alaska, which laid bare the depth of tensions between the world's two largest economies at the outset of the Biden administration. "We expected to have tough and direct talks on a wide range of issues, and that's exactly what we had," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters moments after the Chinese delegation left the hotel meeting room. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was not surprised that the United States got a "defensive response" from China after it raised allegations of Chinese human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong as well as cyberattacks and pressure on Taiwan. While Biden's two-month old administration is still conducting China policy reviews, Yang and Wang by contrast are veteran diplomats with decades of combined experience handling U.S.-China relations at the highest levels of the Chinese government.