Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi has urged Washington to ‘work with China’ to improve ties during a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday.
The discussion on the sidelines of Southeast Asian talks in Jakarta on Thursday was the latest in a series of high-level interactions as the two sides try to ease trade and geopolitical tensions.
In their second meeting in less than a month, Blinken raised concerns about alleged Chinese cybersecurity threats after Microsoft said Chinese state-backed hackers had breached email accounts of US government agencies, including that of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Wang is known as a ‘wolf warrior diplomat,’ a confrontational style of negotiating popular with the Chinese Communist Party.
Washington ‘needs to take a rational and pragmatic approach, work with China in the same direction’, Wang told Blinken according to a statement on Friday by the foreign ministry in Beijing.
Beijing’s top diplomat Wang Yi has urged Washington to ‘work with China’ to improve ties during a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday
He urged the United States to stop ‘interfering’ in China’s affairs.
‘Wang outlined China’s stern position on the Taiwan question and urged the US to avoid wantonly interfering in China’s internal affairs,’ the ministry said.
He also urged the United States to ‘stop suppressing China in the economy, trade, science and technology, and lift illegal and unwarranted sanctions against China’.
Tensions between the United States and China have soared in recent years over a range of issues, including trade, US military support for Taiwan, Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and its cosy relationship with Russia.
China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a part of its territory.
Washington has choked advanced semiconductor exports to China and Beijing recently retaliated by restricting exports of gallium and germanium, two metals widely used to make semiconductors and electric vehicles.
The discussion between the top diplomats did not lead to any breakthroughs, but it was ‘candid, pragmatic and constructive’, the Chinese foreign ministry said, adding that the two sides ‘agreed to maintain communication’.
The State Department discovered a vulnerability in Microsoft’s cloud last month. The only two executive branch agencies known to have emails breached are the Commerce and State Departments.
The discussion on the sidelines of Southeast Asian talks in Jakarta on Thursday was the latest in a series of high-level interactions as the two sides try to ease trade and geopolitical tensions
Washington ‘needs to take a rational and pragmatic approach, work with China in the same direction’, Wang told Blinken according to a statement on Friday by the foreign ministry in Beijing
Chinese cyberspies hacked into Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo’s email – and had access for about a month before being discovered and cut-off
The targeted cyber espionage campaign has been mitigated. But not before the hackers had access to the email accounts for about a month before being cut-off.
Nine U.S. organizations were victimized by the cyber attack with some email accounts compromised at each entity, a senior Homeland Security official said.
Microsoft says that a total of 25 organizations worldwide were hacked.
‘U.S. government safeguards identified an intrusion in Microsoft’s cloud security, which affected unclassified systems,’ National Security Council spokesman Adam Hodges told the Post.
‘Officials immediately contacted Microsoft to find the source and vulnerability in their cloud service,’ he added. ‘We continue to hold the procurement providers of the U.S. government to a high security threshold.’
Discovery of the hack coincided with Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing last month.
Beijing has been open in denouncing Raimondo’s Commerce Department imposing harsh export controls on Chinese companies, which the CCP says is a malicious suppression tactic.
An FBI investigation is ongoing into the matter.
Trade tensions have lingered since the Trump administration slapped tariffs on Chinese products that have remained
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, shakes hands with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who in March accused the U.S. ‘not fair competition, but malicious confrontation’
Secretary of State Antony Blinken walks after arriving in Beijing, China, June 18, 2023. The Biden administration hopes to smooth relations after a tense period
A person familiar with the matter said it does not appear that any email accounts of Pentagon, intelligence or military officials were affected.
Microsoft said late Tuesday it mitigated an espionage and data theft attack by a ‘China-based threat actor’ actor targeting government agencies in Western Europe.
Blinken met Wang last month on the first visit to China by a US secretary of state in five years.
Despite Blinken’s presence in China, he and other U.S. officials had played down the prospects for any significant breakthroughs on the most vexing issues facing the planet’s two largest economies.
Instead, Blinken and other officials have emphasized the importance of the U.S. and China establishing and maintaining better lines of communication.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a second and final day of critical meetings with senior Chinese officials Monday, as the two sides expressed willingness to talk but showed little inclination toward compromise
The two sides said Qin had accepted an invitation from Blinken to visit Washington but Beijing made clear that ‘the China-U.S. relationship is at the lowest point since its establishment.’ That sentiment is widely shared by U.S. officials.
The State Department said Blinken had stressed ‘the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation.’
The Chinese, meanwhile, restated their position that the current state of relations ‘does not serve the fundamental interests of the two peoples or meet the shared expectations of the international community,’ according to the foreign ministry.
Biden and Xi had made commitments to improve communications ‘precisely so that we can make sure we are communicating as clearly as possible to avoid possible misunderstandings and miscommunications,’ Blinken said before leaving for Beijing.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen then went to China earlier this month, and climate envoy John Kerry is to visit next week.
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