WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters) – The USA and China held “candid” talks on maritime points, together with on the contested South China Sea, and the U.S. facet underscored its issues about “harmful and illegal” Chinese language actions there, the U.S. State Division mentioned on Friday.
The talks happened in Beijing between the division’s China Coordinator Mark Lambert and China’s Director-Normal for Boundary and Ocean Affairs Hong Liang, the State Division mentioned in an announcement, with out saying once they had been held.
The assembly follows current high-level diplomacy forward of an anticipated assembly between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese language President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the mid November APEC summit in San Francisco.
The U.S. assertion mentioned the talks had been a part of “efforts to keep up open strains of communication and responsibly handle the U.S.-China relationship” and that the U.S. facet reiterated the necessity to resume military-military channels, “to keep away from miscommunication and miscalculation.”
It described the talks as “substantive, constructive, and candid” and mentioned they coated a spread of maritime points, together with the South China Sea and East China Sea, that are contested by China and different nations.
“The USA underscored issues with the PRC’s harmful and illegal actions within the South China Sea,” it mentioned, referring to the Folks’s Republic of China.
Such actions included China’s obstruction of an Oct. 22 Philippine resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal and its “unsafe” intercept of a U.S. plane on Oct. 24, the assertion mentioned.
China mentioned on Monday after a go to by Overseas Minister Wang Yi to Washington that the U.S. and China would maintain “consultations on arms management and non-proliferation” within the coming days, in addition to separate talks on maritime affairs and different points.
A State Division spokesperson mentioned the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Arms Management Mallory Stewart would host Solar Xiaobo, head of the arms-control division at China’s Overseas Ministry, on the State Division subsequent week.
“We’ve got frequently known as on the PRC to substantively interact on arms management points and decreasing strategic threat,” the spokesperson mentioned, a reference to U.S. issues about China’s nuclear weapons build-up and frustration that Beijing has proven little curiosity in discussing this.
A flurry of diplomatic engagements in current months, largely at Washington’s request, has sought to salvage what had been quickly deteriorating ties between the 2 international locations following the U.S. downing in February of a suspected Chinese language spy balloon.
Whereas Biden and Xi are anticipated to satisfy this month, China has but to substantiate this and a senior Biden administration official mentioned on Tuesday essential particulars have but to be hammered out.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Modifying by Sandra Maler)
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