US-China relations won’t improve until Beijing ends trade row with Australia, Biden aide says
- Kurt Campbell said the US will not offer any improvements in the relationship with China until Beijing stops its economic coercion of Canberra
- President Biden’s Indo-Pacific coordinator said the issue will be underscored in talks with Chinese officials in Alaska later this week
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, the US president’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell, said China’s “economic coercion” of Australia had been raised in every meeting between US and Chinese officials and “will be underscored in interactions in Anchorage later this week”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and State Councillor Wang Yi on March 18 in Alaska, the first high-level in-person contact between the two countries under the Biden administration.
Explainer | What is the Quad, and how will it impact US-China relations?
“We have made clear that the US is not prepared to improve relations in a bilateral and separate context at the same time that a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion,” Campbell told The Sydney Morning Herald in an interview published on Tuesday.
“We are fully aware of what’s going on and we are not prepared to take substantial steps to improve relations until those policies are addressed and a more normal interplay between Canberra and Beijing is established,” said Campbell.
01:19
After Quad summit discusses China threat, Beijing says ‘cliques’ drive wedge between countries
Campbell told the newspaper it was not only Australia that had been a target of “these undeclared kind of steps”, but also the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan.
