U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, to discuss U.S.-China relations under the Biden administration. Blinken reiterated the confrontational approach taken by Biden in his foreign policy speech earlier this week, stating through his spokesperson Ned Price that “the United States will continue to stand up for human rights and democratic values, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and … [will] hold the P.R.C. accountable for its efforts to threaten stability in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, and its undermining of the rules-based international system.”
Yang Jiechi, according to Xinhua, stated that China “urges the United States to rectify its mistakes made over a period of time and work with China to uphold the spirit of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, focus on cooperation and manage differences.… Yang stressed that the two sides should respect each other’s core interests and choices of political system and development path, and manage their domestic affairs well.”
Yang made it clear that “China will unswervingly follow its path of socialism with Chinese characteristics and no force could stop the realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation…. The Taiwan question, the most important and sensitive core issue in China-U.S. relations, bears on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, Yang said. The United States should strictly abide by the one-China principle and the three Sino-U.S. joint communiqués, he said, adding that Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet-related affairs are all China’s internal affairs and allow no interference by any external forces.”