After the Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a confrontational encounter with Chinese officials during a meeting in Alaska on Thursday, President Joe Biden said that he’s proud of the top U.S. diplomat, informed The Hill.
“I’m very proud of the Secretary of State,” said Biden during briefing remarks before departing for Atlanta.
The first high-level meeting between Biden’s administration and Chinese officials that happened in Anchorage were open to the press and sounded pretty sharp and adversarial for that kind of discussion.
Blinken said that it is time for the U.S. officials to express their “deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the United States and economic coercion toward our allies.”
“Each of these actions threaten the rules-based order that maintains global stability. That’s why they’re not merely internal matters and why we feel an obligation to raise these issues here today,” said Blinken.
It was obvious that the Chinese officials didn’t received Blinken’s remarks well, with the foreign affairs director of the Communist party Yang Jiechi’s response issuing the “tone” of the Americans, and saying that the U.S. have their own problems with human rights and democracy implementation, referring to the latest Black Lives Matters protests.
“Well, isn’t this the intention of United States, judging from what – or the way that you have made your opening remarks, that it wants to speak to China in a condescending way from a position of strength? I think we thought too well of the United States. We thought that the U.S. side will follow the necessary diplomatic protocols. So for China it was necessary that we made our position clear,” is said in the translation of the remarks that Yang made.
This passed meeting that Biden’s administration had with Chinese officials gives a suggestion that the further meetings scheduled for Friday will be categorized as confrontational.
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