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US, China can compete and cooperate to build trust, American diplomat says
- Nations could work together in areas like climate change and Afghanistan, according to David Meale, chargé d’affaires of the US embassy in Beijing
- ‘I think of it as a process of improving what’s easy to improve’ before moving on to tackle the most challenging issues, he says
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A senior American diplomat in Beijing has called for the US and China to look for areas where they can cooperate – like climate change and Afghanistan – as a way to build trust before moving on to more challenging issues.
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David Meale, chargé d’affaires of the US embassy in Beijing, also said he did not believe Washington and Beijing were treading a fine line between competition and confrontation.
“I don’t think it is walking a fine line, I think of it as a process of improving what is easy to improve, then what is a little more challenging to improve, and then learning from those processes to extend to our most challenging areas,” he told Chinese magazine Caijing in an interview published on Sunday.
His remarks come as the two powers remain locked in confrontation over a wide range of issues, including China’s maritime disputes with its neighbours, Taiwan, trade policies, and human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
But there has been more high-level communication between the two sides in recent months, with US deputy secretary of state Wendy Sherman meeting senior Chinese diplomats in Tianjin in July, and the countries’ leaders, Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, speaking by phone last month.
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Xi asked US to ‘properly handle’ Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou case in phone call with Biden: China
Xi asked US to ‘properly handle’ Huawei’s Meng Wanzhou case in phone call with Biden: China
During the call – their first in six months – Xi and Biden discussed managing the competition between the two nations. Beijing last week also confirmed that Xi had called for the US to “properly” resolve the case of Huawei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou during the phone call. Two weeks later, Meng was released from nearly three years under house arrest in Vancouver after admitting wrongdoing – but not guilt – in a case relating to alleged violations of US sanctions on Iran. She had been detained in Canada at the request of the US and the case further inflamed tensions between Beijing and Washington.
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