US secretary of state Antony Blinken and China’s foreign minister Wang Yi shake hands as they meet on the side of the Munich Security Conference on Friday (Pool/AP pic)
MUNICH: US secretary of state Antony Blinken held “candid and constructive” talks with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on Friday, during which he raised concerns over Beijing’s backing for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Blinken and Wang’s meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference came after an extremely fraught period between the two world giants over issues such as tensions over Taiwan, trade, and human rights.
Washington and Beijing have also been at odds over China’s detente with Russia as Moscow wages war on Ukraine.
But tensions have eased markedly over the past year as Washington pursued dialogue with Beijing.
Blinken underlined the “importance of continuing to implement the progress made” by a November summit between Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, said state department spokesman Matthew Miller.
He also raised the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea, added the spokesman.
Wang echoed Blinken’s sentiment about the Biden-Xi summit, saying both sides needed to work to “promote a sound, steady, and sustainable development of bilateral relations”, according to China’s Xinhua state news agency.
Xinhua said the two sides had held “candid, substantive, and constructive discussions”.
On Russia, Blinken raised US concerns that Moscow was developing a space-based anti-satellite weapon – an issue that the US secretary of state also brought up at a separate meeting with India’s foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Washington had made the announcement about the “space-based” weapon on Thursday, something that Moscow denied, calling them “malicious” and “unfounded” claims.
At meetings with Wang and Jaishankar, Blinken “emphasised that the pursuit of this capability should be a matter of concern”, said the US official.
“He will continue raising it in additional meetings at the Munich Security Conference,” added the official.
Although Beijing still resents US measures such as the banning of exports of advanced semiconductors, relations between the two giants have stabilised somewhat since Biden met Xi in San Francisco in November.
Making good on a commitment made during the summit, a US delegation held an inaugural meeting in February in China on the flow of fentanyl, the powerful painkiller behind an addiction epidemic in the US.
US officials believe China wants to focus on economic headwinds at home and feel that it acted with comparative moderation during last month’s elections in Taiwan.