Senior US and Chinese diplomats held “candid and productive” talks in Beijing and agreed to keep open lines of communication to avoid tensions from spiralling into conflict, officials said.
Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant US secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was the most senior US official confirmed to have visited China on Monday since tensions between Washington and Beijing soared over the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon over the United States in early February.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the time postponed a planned trip to China, and Beijing has since largely rebuffed attempts at official exchanges, though two top US and Chinese defence officials briefly interacted at a forum in Singapore.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Kritenbrink and Vice-Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu “had candid, constructive and fruitful communication on promoting the improvement of China-US relations and properly managing differences”.
Beijing said it had stated its “solemn position on Taiwan” and other issues and that the two sides had agreed to maintain communication.
The US State Department also said the two officials held “candid and productive discussions as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and build on recent high-level diplomacy between the two countries”.
CIA Director William Burns last month reportedly took a secret trip to Beijing in another sign the two sides are interested in restoring communication through various channels. — AP
