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Alaska summit: US and Chinese officials clash, but who’s at the table?
- Day one of talks got off to a tense start in Anchorage, as the delegations sparred in front of the cameras
- It’s the first face-to-face meeting between the two sides since US President Joe Biden took office
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A two-day meeting between China and the United States got off to a tense start in Anchorage, Alaska on Thursday, putting their deeply strained relationship on rare public display.
It is the first face-to-face talks between the two sides since US President Joe Biden took office, with the American delegation led by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, and China’s headed by its top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Sparring in front of the cameras, Blinken told his Chinese counterparts the US would address “deep concerns” over Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Yang hit back, criticising the US for what he said was its struggling democracy and poor treatment of minorities, and over its foreign and trade policies.
So who is taking part in the Alaska showdown?
02:23
Gloves off at top-level US-China summit in Alaska with on-camera sparring
Gloves off at top-level US-China summit in Alaska with on-camera sparring
The Chinese delegation
Yang Jiechi, director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs
Yang is China’s most senior foreign policy official. Head of the Communist Party’s foreign affairs office and a Politburo member, Yang is regarded as President Xi Jinping’s most trusted foreign policy aide.
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