First takes between US and China turns blunt

U.S. and Chinese officials gave sharply different views of each other and the environment as the two rivals met face-to-face for the first time since President Joe Biden took office.

In unusually sharp public comments for a staid strategic meeting, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi held aim at each other’s country's policies on Thursday at the start of two days of discussions in Alaska.

The contentious tone of their public remarks suggested the private discussions would be even rockier.

The meetings in Anchorage were a new test in more troubled relations among the two nations, which are at odds over a range of issues from trade to human rights in Tibet, Hong Kong, and China’s westernmost Xinjiang region, as well as over Taiwan, China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and the coronavirus pandemic.

Blinken said the Biden rule is associated with its allies in driving back against China’s increasing authoritarianism and assertiveness at home and abroad. Yang then casted a list of Chinese complaints about the U.S. and accused Washington of display for reading Beijing on human rights and other issues.

“Each of these actions advances the rules-based order that has global stability,” Blinken said of China's activities in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and of cyberattacks on the United States and economic pressure against U.S. allies. “That’s why they’re not only civil matters, and why we feel a responsibility to raise those issues here today.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan raised the criticism, saying China has undertaken an “assault on basic values.”

“We do not seek battle but we include stiff competition,” he said.

Yang reacted strongly by suggesting the U.S. stop violating its own story of government at a time when the United States itself has been plagued by domestic dissatisfaction.

He also cited the U.S. of learning to deal with its own human rights abuses and took confinement with what he said was “arrogance” from Blinken, Sullivan and other U.S. officials.