Chinese FM urges US to get ties back on track in meeting with envoy David Perdue
The US should meet China halfway and create the 'necessary conditions' for bringing bilateral ties back on track, top diplomat Wang Yi has told the new American ambassador, amid White House expectations that a phone call between the two state leaders could occur this week.
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In a meeting with David Perdue in Beijing on Tuesday, Wang said that mutual respect and cooperation were the foundation of stable China-US relations, which he said were at a 'crucial juncture'.
'Equality and respect are the prerequisites for interactions, while dialogue and cooperation remain the only correct path forward,' he said, drawing a reference to the two countries' engagement since diplomatic ties were established in 1979.
On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping were 'likely' to have a phone conversation this week.
US trade officials believe a leaders' phone call would help towards ironing out the details of a trade deal amid heightened tensions since last month's meeting in Switzerland.
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Both sides have accused the other of breaking a trade agreement reached in the Geneva talks that saw the US and China cutting tariffs on goods from the other country by 115 per cent for 90 days.
US trade officials accused China of not carrying out terms agreed in Geneva, including the removal of an export ban on rare earths. On Friday, Trump personally made the same accusation. Beijing in turn claimed that the US had 'severely undermined' the truce.
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Asia Times
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Trump's Golden Dome will make US – and world
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Regardless of Golden Dome's feasibility, there is a long history of scholarship about strategic missile defenses, and the weight of evidence points to the defenses making their host country less safe from nuclear attack. I'm a national security and foreign policy professor at Harvard University, where I lead 'Managing the Atom,' the university's main research group on nuclear weapons and nuclear energy policies. For decades, I've been participating in dialogues with Russian and Chinese nuclear experts – and their fears about US missile defenses have been a consistent theme throughout. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have already warned that Golden Dome is destabilizing. 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China's rapid nuclear buildup is making many defense officials and experts in Washington call for a US buildup in response. Intense hostility all around means that for now, neither Russia nor China is even willing to sit down to discuss nuclear restraints, in treaty form or otherwise. In my view, adding Golden Dome to this combustible mix would likely end any prospect of avoiding a future of unrestrained and unpredictable nuclear arms competition. But paths away from these dangers are available. It would be quite plausible to design defenses that would provide some protection against attacks from a handful of missiles from North Korea or others that would not seriously threaten Russian or Chinese deterrent forces – and design restraints that would allow all parties to plan their offensive forces knowing what missile defenses they would be facing in the years to come. I believe that Trump should temper his Golden Dome ambitions to achieve his other dream – of negotiating a deal to reduce nuclear dangers. Matthew Bunn is professor of the practice of energy, national security and foreign policy, Harvard Kennedy School This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Thanks
South China Morning Post
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