US keen to ‘manage differences’ with China amid strains over Taiwan trip: State Department

Beijing described as having ‘shut down’ some key communication, according to readout of meeting between Chinese ambassador and No 2 American diplomat

Face-to-face discussion in Washington was first between the two sides since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s controversial visit to Taiwan

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US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met with Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the US, in Washington on Tuesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 8:00am, 25 Aug 2022Updated: 9:54am, 25 Aug 2022

Beijing has reduced its interactions with the outside world on matters of global importance but Washington will endeavour to keep the channels open, a State Department spokesman said Wednesday in a terse readout of the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.

The meeting in Washington on Tuesday between Qin Gang, China’s ambassador to the United States, and Wendy Sherman, US Deputy Secretary of State, came as US-China relations hit a new low. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this month sparked an unprecedented show of military force and diplomatic anger from Beijing.

“Beijing has shut down some key communication channels and cooperation across several vital issues that affect the entire world, but the United States continues to seek an open and constructive line of communication to manage our differences,” Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, said in a briefing on Wednesday.

Patel declined to elaborate on the topics or duration of Tuesday’s meeting between the two senior diplomats, what vital issues of global importance would be undercut by China’s severed communication or whether the meeting was designed to create “guard rails” preventing the two countries from drifting into an unintended clash.

“I will just reiterate what I answered before,” Patel said, adhering to his talking points nearly word for word on the need for open communication. “I will note that we continue to take calm and resolute steps to uphold peace and stability in the region as well as support Taiwan in line with our long-standing ‘one-China’ policy.”