US-China relations: foreign policy chiefs lay down markers for future but refuse to give ground
- Secretary of State Antony Blinken says US will hold Beijing to account, but Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi warns Washington to correct its ‘wrong policies’
- Chinese observers hope that by setting out their bottom lines the two sides will at least have a framework to handle future disputes
China and the US have laid out their bottom lines in a phone call between their most senior diplomats, something that Chinese observers believe could provide a basis for managing future disputes.
Few observers expect the rivalry between the two sides to cool down quickly, and in Saturday’s conversation, the first of its kind since Joe Biden took office, Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that the US would work with allies and partners to hold China accountable for threatening regional stability.
Meanwhile Yang Jiechi, the Communist Party’s foreign policy chief, urged the US not to undermine China’s core interests and correct its “wrong policies”.
“The secretary reaffirmed that the United States will work together with its allies and partners in defence of our shared values and interests to hold the PRC [People’s Republic of China] accountable for its efforts to threaten stability in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, and its undermining of the rules-based international system”.