The US and China vowed to avoid confrontation as they yesterday headed into a final day of key talks, confronting head-on differences on issues such as cybersecurity and freedom of the seas.
US President Barack Obama was also preparing to meet key members of the Chinese delegation yesterday ahead of a visit in September by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
US Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday sharply warned Beijing that the world’s waterways — which carry 80 percent of the planet’s commerce — must remain open.
Photo: Reuters
“Responsible countries adhere to international law and work together to keep international sea lanes open for unimpaired commerce,” Biden said.
The two major trading partners remain at odds over China’s claims to much of the South China Sea and Washington has repeatedly urged Beijing to stop building artificial islands and resolve its numerous territorial claims peacefully.
“Nations that discard diplomacy and use coercion and intimidation to settle disputes or turn a blind eye to aggression of others, only invite instability,” Biden said.
In unusually frank comments, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang (汪洋) agreed Beijing and Washington do not agree on everything, admitting “on some issues, perhaps, consensus still eludes us.”
However, he said: “Neither of us could afford the cost of noncooperation or even all-out confrontation.”
“Decisionmakers of both countries must always remember that confrontation is a negative-sum game in which both sides will pay heavy prices and the world will suffer too,” Wang said.
Welcoming the top delegation of about 400 officials also led by Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) for the seventh round of annual talks, Biden insisted Beijing must be at the table to help set up a new “rules-based system” in a rapidly changing world.
“There will be intense competition, we will have intense disagreements. That’s the nature of international relations,” Biden said.
“There are important issues where we don’t see eye-to-eye, but it doesn’t mean we should stop working hand-in-hand,” he said.
“No nations agree on every issue, but we do not accept that a narrowing of the differences is beyond our reach,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said. “Our relationship is dynamic and it has grown and matured steadily in the past decades.”
Yang vowed China would work with the US “in a spirit of openness, to properly address the relevant issues.”
High on the agenda is cyberhacking, with US Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew insisting both nations must “abide by certain standards of behavior within cyberspace.”
“We remain deeply concerned about Chinese government-sponsored cyberenabled theft of confidential business information and proprietary technology from US companies,” Lew told the delegations. “Such activity falls outside of the bounds of acceptable state behavior in cyberspace.”
However, in a sign of China’s discontent, Chinese Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei (樓繼偉) called on the US to boost its domestic savings and investment to strengthen growth, including spending to improve infrastructure.
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