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| Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi listens to a question during a news conference with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at the State Department, Wednesday, May 23, 2018, in Washington. AP-Yonhap |
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In his first official meeting with Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Wang relayed Chinese President Xi Jinping's call for both countries to uphold what he called the basic principles of "mutual respect, peaceful co-existence and win-win cooperation".
"China-U.S. relations are at a critical juncture," Wang said, according to the Chinese government's readout of the meeting between the two diplomats. "The international community, in general, expects to see stable development of this relationship."
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| Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, right, meets with U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns on Friday, Oct. 28, in Beijing. Xinhua-Yonhap |
"As two major countries, China and the U.S. will not be able to change each other," he added. "The U.S. should not attempt to communicate with China from a position of strength or to attempt in suppressing and containing China's development.
"As an ambassador to China, [we] hope that you can be a bridge in linking China and the U.S."
The Chinese statement cited Burns as saying that the U.S. was willing to "strengthen communication, manage disputes and push for cooperation with China".
The U.S. State Department did not immediately comment on the meeting.
Burns arrived in Beijing as ambassador in March this year to fill the position that had been vacant since October 2020, when Terry Branstad ― the previous ambassador to China, appointed by former President Donald Trump ― stepped down.
Burns arrived when U.S.-China tensions were boiling over owing to Beijing's refusal to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine and accusations by the U.S. government that the Chinese government had taken Russia's side in the conflict.
Bilateral ties have frayed further since Burns assumed his position, most notably because of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August, a move that prompted Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Xie Feng to summon the U.S. envoy to accuse Washington of orchestrating "a deliberate provocation".
Beijing followed up on the incident with several days of unprecedented live-fire military drills that all but encircled Taiwan and, together with Pelosi's visit, appeared to interrupt work towards an in-person summit between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden.
In contrast to Wang's meeting with Burns, the Chinese official ― who is expected to replace Yang Jiechi as Xi's top foreign policy aide ― told his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that Beijing would continue to support Moscow in the international arena as a major power.
Any attempt to block the advancement of China and Russia would never succeed, Wang told Lavrov during a phone call on Thursday, less than a week after the 20th Communist Party congress unveiled a new top Chinese leadership and gave a groundbreaking third term to Xi.
Readouts from Washington and Beijing after Biden and Xi held a virtual summit days before Pelosi's visit to Taipei said that they intended to establish a working group tasked with setting up the meeting. This led to expectations that the summit might take place during the two-day G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia in less than three weeks.
Neither side has confirmed plans for such a meeting. (SCMP)
Read the full story at SCMP
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