America’s top diplomat and China’s vice president voiced hope Monday for more stability in the often tense relationship as the rival powers held their second high-level talks in days.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meeting Vice President Han Zheng in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, said he believed in “face-to-face diplomacy” to deal with disagreements.
“I think it’s a good thing that we have this opportunity to build on the recent high-level engagements that our countries have had,” Blinken told Han as they opened their meeting at China’s mission to the United Nations.
The talks aim to “make sure that we’re maintaining open communications and demonstrate that we are responsibly managing the relationship between our two countries.”
Han said that the world’s two largest economies face “a lot of difficulties and challenges.”
“The world needs healthy and stable US-China relations, which benefit not only China and the US, but the whole world,” he said.