Sino-US relations are mired in a dangerous “deadlock”, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday, as talks with his US counterpart got off to a combative start in the port city of Tianjin.
Vice foreign minister Xie Feng’s meeting with Wendy Sherman, US deputy secretary of state, was the first face-to-face meeting between the countries’ senior representatives since March, when their respective top foreign policy officials sparred openly in Anchorage, Alaska.
“China-US relations are currently at a deadlock and face serious difficulties,” Xie said, according to a copy of his remarks posted on the foreign ministry’s website. He added that the US “wants to reignite a sense of national purpose by establishing China as an ‘imaginary enemy’”, and urged Washington to change what he called its “extremely dangerous China policy”.