Get more with myNEWS

A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you

Learn more

The two-day meeting is being held at a hotel in Anchorage, Alaska. Photo: Xinhua

China Diplomacy

Alaska summit: US and Chinese officials clash, but who’s at the table?

Day one of talks got off to a tense start in Anchorage, as the delegations sparred in front of the cameras
It’s the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since US President Joe Biden took office

US-China relations

Holly Chik

Published: 6:00am, 20 Mar 2021

Why you can trust SCMP

A two-day meeting between China and the United States got off to a tense start in Anchorage, Alaska on Thursday, putting their deeply strained relationship on rare public display.

It is the first face-to-face talks between the two sides since US President Joe Biden took office, with the American delegation led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and China’s headed by its top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Sparring in front of the cameras, Blinken told his Chinese counterparts the US would address “deep concerns” over Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Yang hit back, criticising the US for what he said was its struggling democracy and poor treatment of minorities, and over its foreign and trade policies.

So who is taking part in the Alaska showdown?

02:23

Gloves off at top-level US-China summit in Alaska with on-camera sparring

The Chinese delegation

Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs

Yang is China’s most senior foreign policy official. Head of the Communist Party’s foreign affairs office and a Politburo member, Yang is regarded as President Xi Jinping’s most trusted foreign policy aide.

In February, he talked up the prospects of cooperating with the US and other developed countries on new energy and emerging technologies, despite ongoing tensions. China would “expand and deepen practical cooperation with parties, including the United States, Europe and Japan, in various fields such as new energy and new technologies”, he said.

On the overall relationship, he said the US under Donald Trump had followed “misguided policies”, and called on the new administration to change course – even as comments from Biden’s advisers echoed his predecessor’s tough tone on China.

Yang Jiechi, head of the Communist Party’s foreign affairs office. Photo: AFP

Wang Yi, foreign minister

Wang has been China’s minister of foreign affairs since 2013 when he replaced Yang, who had been in the role since 2007. He was promoted to a state councillor in 2018, meaning he is more senior than government ministers and has an elevated status in the nation’s decision-making structure.

During his annual press conference in early March, Wang urged the US to “remove all its unreasonable restrictions on bilateral cooperation” and said China was ready to set relations “on a new path of healthy and steady growth”.

“The two sides should advocate healthy competition on a fair and just basis for the purpose of self-improvement and mutual enhancement, rather than finger-pointing or zero-sum competition,” he said. “We are open-minded to explore and deepen cooperation with the United States.”

Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Photo: EPA-EFE

Cui Tiankai, ambassador to the US

Cui is China’s longest-serving ambassador to Washington after nearly eight years in the position. Despite being well over the usual retirement age for officials of his rank, the 68-year-old is expected to stay on in the job to help handle the volatile relations between the two countries, the South China Morning Post reported earlier.

On the eve of the Alaska talks, Cui sought to temper expectations in an interview with Chinese media.

“We do not have unrealistic expectations or illusions on it,” he told state news agency Xinhua and several other outlets. “But I hope that it will become a beginning and that the two sides will start a candid, constructive and rational process of dialogue and communication. If this can be achieved, then the dialogue will be successful.”

Chinese ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai. Photo: Xinhua

Xie Feng, vice-minister of foreign affairs

Xie was named vice-minister of foreign affairs last month, in charge of policy planning for North America and Oceania, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as translation and interpretation.

He returned to Beijing from Hong Kong in January, ending his tenure as the commissioner of the Office of the Commissioner of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the city.

Xie Feng, vice-minister of foreign affairs. Photo: AFP

Lu Kang, director general of the foreign ministry’s Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs

Lu took over as head of North America and Oceania affairs in 2019 after leading the foreign ministry’s information department as a senior spokesman.

According to the ministry, Lu’s department oversees and coordinates policies on cooperation and exchanges with countries including the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It also manages diplomatic contacts with those countries and is responsible for translation and interpretation.

Lu Kang, head of the foreign ministry’s Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs. Photo: Kyodo

Liu Jianchao, deputy director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs

Liu, a senior official in the Communist Party, became deputy director of the commission in 2018. He met the Indian ambassador to China in August last year amid a tense military stand-off on the countries’ disputed Himalayan border, according to the Indian embassy in Beijing.

He became an assistant minister of foreign affairs in 2015 after serving as Chinese ambassador to the Philippines and Indonesia and as chief spokesman for the ministry.

Liu Jianchao, deputy director, Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs. Photo: AFP

The US delegation

Antony Blinken, secretary of state

Blinken, a long-time foreign policy adviser to President Biden, is America’s top diplomat. He was Biden’s top aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as national security adviser from 2009 to 2013, when Biden was vice-president.

As former president Barack Obama’s deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017, Blinken met top Chinese diplomats including Yang and Wang.

Just before the Anchorage talks, Washington slapped more sanctions on 24 Hong Kong and mainland Chinese officials over Beijing’s drastic overhaul of the city’s electoral system.

Blinken said the shake-up of Hong Kong’s political structure “further undermines the high degree of autonomy promised to people in Hong Kong and denies Hongkongers a voice in their own governance, a move that the United Kingdom has declared to be a breach of the Sino-British Joint Declaration”.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Photo: TNS

Jake Sullivan, national security adviser

Sullivan is the top US national security official and a top adviser to Biden. He served in the Obama administration as national security adviser to then vice-president Biden and was director of policy planning at the Department of State, as well as deputy chief of staff to then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

In his first major foreign policy address since taking office in January, he said the new administration planned to respond quickly and decisively to China’s increasingly assertive and bellicose policies towards Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang and beyond.

He said other priorities in the China strategy included government investment for technology sectors Beijing hoped to dominate.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Photo: AFP

Kurt Campbell, Indo-Pacific coordinator at the National Security Council; deputy assistant to the president

Campbell, an Obama administration veteran, has taken up a new role at the National Security Council as Biden’s point man on China and Asia policy, as well as being his deputy assistant.

Two days before the Alaska talks, he told The Sydney Morning Herald that the US would not offer any improvements in the relationship with China until Beijing stopped its economic coercion of Australia.

He said China’s “economic coercion” of Canberra had been raised in every meeting between US and Chinese officials and “will be underscored in interactions in Anchorage later this week”.

He is widely known as the chief architect of Obama’s “pivot to Asia” strategy, aimed at promoting collaboration in Asia, especially with China, on areas like climate change and US-led regional security.

Kurt Campbell, Indo-Pacific coordinator at the National Security Council, and deputy assistant to the president. Photo: AFP

Laura Rosenberger, senior director for China at the National Security Council

Rosenberger, a US foreign policy veteran and vocal critic of China’s propaganda on the coronavirus, is serving in her second US administration as senior director for China at the National Security Council, reporting to Campbell.

She was previously NSC director for China and Korea under Obama. She was also chief of staff to then-deputy secretary of state Blinken. She also was an adviser on foreign policy to Clinton during her 2016 presidential run.

Laura Rosenberger, senior director for China at the National Security Council. Photo: CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

Robert Forden, charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Beijing

Forden has led the US mission to China since October after serving as the deputy chief for two years.

In June 2019, he was summoned by foreign vice-minister Le Yucheng, who protested against Washington’s condemnation of Hong Kong’s controversial extradition bill. Le said China did not accept foreign forces meddling in Hong Kong affairs.

Robert Forden, charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Beijing. Photo: Twitter

Jonathan Fritz, deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs

Fritz has been serving as the deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for China, Mongolia and Taiwan coordination since June 2019.

According to the Department of State, he was also posted at the US embassy in Beijing, where he served alternately as minister-counsellor for economic affairs, chief of staff, acting deputy chief of mission and charge d’affaires.