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WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States and China resume their talks at the highest level Friday, November 9, after months of tension, to try to find a solution to disputes ranging from trade to military friction.
Friday's late meeting in Washington comes weeks before US leader Donald Trump meets his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Argentina, with both parties hoping to announce progress.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary James Mattis will spend Friday morning with two senior Chinese policymakers a few days after a congressional election in which Trump portrayed China as a boggart.
Mr Mattis' planned trip to Beijing last month was canceled due to rising military tensions between the Pacific powers. But on Friday, China's Defense Minister, General Wei Fenghe, will go to the Pentagon for a ceremonial.
The defense chiefs will have prior talks in the State Department with Mr. Pompeo and senior Communist Party leader Yang Jiechi, longtime architect of Chinese foreign policy and former ambassador to Washington.
Discussions will focus on security, but trade is at the heart of tensions. Trump has imposed a US $ 250 billion tariff on Chinese goods, accusing Beijing of damaging business practices and retaliating.
While some Trump administration comments on China have led commentators to draw parallels with the Cold War, US Ambassador to Beijing, Terry Branstad, said Washington was not seeking confrontation for itself. .
"We want this relationship with China to be constructive and results-oriented. The United States is not trying to contain China, but we want fairness and reciprocity, "Branstad told reporters on the eve of the talks.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hua Chunying said here Friday that China hopes the talks "will bring very good results" and help "deepen understanding" and "accelerate collaboration between the two sides". .
FULL OF DISPUTES
Mr Branstad said the talks would consist of "open and honest exchanges" on issues ranging from human rights to innumerable maritime conflicts in the South China Sea.
"We want to advance our priorities, including North Korea, and China has played a leading role in North Korea's participation at the negotiating table," said Branstad.
Trump is looking to follow up on his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who relies on China as his mainstay.
But a meeting scheduled this week in New York between Mr. Pompeo and a senior North Korean official was abruptly canceled, the last turning point in turbulent diplomacy.
With the exception of North Korean politics, the United States has increasingly viewed China as an undisciplined actor on the international stage.
At a meeting with former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Beijing on Thursday, Nov. 8, Xi said it was "remarkable that negative voices about China are coming up." for some time in the United States, "according to the official Xinhua newspaper. agency.
But Xi said he had agreed to meet with Mr. Trump in Argentina, where "both sides can have an in-depth exchange of views on issues of common interest".
Xi said China "is still committed to building a relationship with the United States that does not involve conflict, confrontation, mutual respect or win-win cooperation."
Washington is particularly furious at what it considers to be a widespread theft of American technology – an accusation that China denies.
Xi recently seduced investors by promising to take steps to encourage imports, while Foreign Minister Yang Yi insisted that China was not trying to dethrone the United States. as a preeminent power.
The Trump administration, though generally speaking poorly on human rights, blamed China for massively detaining Uighurs, the predominantly Muslim minority in its north-west.
According to a recent United Nations report, nearly one million ethnic Uighurs are currently being held in extrajudicial detention, some simply for practicing Islam from outside.
Uyghur Human Rights Project, a Washington-based advocacy group that uses an alternative spelling for ethnicity, urged the US to report detentions in Friday's dialogue, saying it was important to show a message "unified" world.
Beijing, after denying the detention camps, instead described them as vocational training centers discouraging religious extremism.
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