Hong Kong/Beijing: U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo stressed the need for full transparency and information-sharing during the global Covid-19 pandemic and future outbreaks as he met his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi.
The Wednesday summit at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii between Pompeo and Yang, China’s top foreign policy official, was the first time the two men had met since August 2019 — although they had spoken by telephone since then.
“The secretary stressed important American interests and the need for fully-reciprocal dealings between the two nations across commercial, security, and diplomatic interactions,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement. The Chinese foreign ministry called the talks “constructive” and said the two diplomats had agreed to implement an earlier consensus agreed to by President Donald Trump and China’s leader Xi Jinping.
The meeting came amid a worsening strain in relations, between the world’s two largest economies, with clashes on issues ranging from handling of the coronavirus, human rights and Hong Kong.
The Chinese statement said the two men discussed Hong Kong, Taiwan and the situation of Muslim Uighurs in the far west region of Xinjiang.
Trump blames China for the global coronavirus pandemic, which first appeared in the mainland city of Wuhan, and the U.S. has also threatened to revoke Hong Kong’s special trading status over concerns that China is seeking to erode the former British colony’s political autonomy.
The exchange between Pompeo and Yang also coincided with publication of excerpts of a memoir by Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, who accused the president of asking Xi to help him win re-election by buying more U.S. farm products.
The trade deal signed in January is the only area of cooperation between the two, but Chinese purchases of agricultural goods are well behind where they need to be to meet its promises and the global recession is damaging trade generally. –Bloomberg
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