In ‘frank’ talks, China accuses U.S. of creating ‘imaginary enemy’

By Yew Lun Tian and Tony Munroe

BEIJING (Reuters) -A top Chinese diplomat took a confrontational tone on Monday in rare high-level talks with the United States, accusing it of creating an “imaginary enemy” to divert attention from domestic problems and suppress China.

Amid worsening relations between the world’s two largest economies, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat, arrived on Sunday for face-to-face meetings in the northern city of Tianjin that the U.S. State Department described as “frank and open.”

No specific outcomes were agreed and the prospect of a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping was not discussed, senior U.S. administration officials said following talks that lasted about four hours.

China seized the early narrative, with state media reporting on confrontational remarks by Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng soon after the session began, in echoes of a similarly combative opening by senior Chinese officials during high-level talks in March in Alaska.

Foreign media were kept at a distance from the site of the talks, held outside of Beijing due to COVID-19 protocols, but Chinese media were permitted on the premises.

“The United States wants to reignite the sense of national purpose by establishing China as an ‘imaginary enemy’,” Xie was quoted as saying while the talks were underway.

The United States had mobilized its government and society to suppress China, he added.

“As if once China’s development is suppressed, U.S. domestic and external problems will be resolved, and America will be great again, and America’s hegemony can be continued.”

Sherman laid out U.S. concerns over China’s actions on issues ranging from Hong Kong and Xinjiang to Tibet and cyber attacks, senior administration officials said, adding that China should not approach areas of global concern, such as climate and Afghanistan, on a transactional basis.

Sherman, who also met with State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, raised concerns including over what Washington sees as China’s unwillingness to cooperate with the World Health Organization on a second phase investigation of the origins of COVID-19, and foreign media access in China.

“The Deputy Secretary raised concerns in private – as we have in public – about a range of PRC actions that run counter to our values and interests and those of our allies and partners, and that undermine the international rules-based order,” the State Department said in a statement.

“It is important for the United States and China to discuss areas where we disagree so that we understand one another’s position, and so that we are clear about where each side is coming from,” a senior administration official said.

“Reaching agreement or specific outcomes was not the purpose of today’s conversations,” a senior U.S. official said.

PROTOCOL WRANGLE

Sherman’s China visit was added late to an Asian itinerary that included stops in Japan, South Korea and Mongolia amid wrangling over protocol between Beijing and Washington.

On Saturday, Wang had warned that China would not accept the United States taking a “superior” position in the relationship, a day after China unveiled sanctions on former U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and others.

Relations between Beijing and Washington deteriorated sharply under former U.S. President Donald Trump, and the Biden administration has maintained pressure on China in a stance that enjoys bipartisan support but threatens to deepen mistrust.

“When both countries see each other as an enemy, the danger is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Cheng Xiaohe, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing.

Monday’s talks came amid frayed relations between Beijing and Washington that have worsened in the months since an initial diplomatic meeting in March in Anchorage, the first under the Biden administration.

At the Alaska meeting, Chinese officials, including Wang, railed against the state of U.S. democracy, while U.S. officials accused the Chinese side of grandstanding.

(Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Cate Cadell and Tony Munroe; Editing by Lincoln Feast, Clarence Fernandez and Giles Elgood)

China angered as U.S. names human rights envoy for Tibet

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – China accused the United States on Thursday of seeking to destabilize Tibet, after the Trump administration appointed a senior human rights official as special coordinator for Tibetan issues.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced on Wednesday that Robert Destro, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, would assume the additional post, which has been vacant since the start of President Donald Trump’s term in 2017.

China has consistently refused to deal with the U.S. coordinator, seeing it as interference in its internal affairs.

“Tibet affairs are China’s internal affairs that allow no foreign interference,” said Zhao Lijian, a spokesman at the Chinese foreign ministry.

“The setting up of the so-called coordinator for Tibetan issues is entirely out of political manipulation to interfere in China’s internal affairs and destabilize Tibet. China firmly opposes that,” Zhao said at a regular media briefing.

The appointment comes at a time when U.S.-China relations have sunk to the lowest point in decades over a range of issues, including trade, Taiwan, human rights, the South China Sea and the coronavirus.

Destro “will lead U.S. efforts to promote dialogue between the People’s Republic of China and the Dalai Lama or his representatives; protect the unique religious, cultural, and linguistic identity of Tibetans; and press for their human rights to be respected,” Pompeo said in a statement.

China seized control over Tibet in 1950 in what it describes as a “peaceful liberation” that helped the remote Himalayan region throw off its “feudalist” past.

“People of all ethnic groups in Tibet are part of the big family of the Chinese nation, and since its peaceful liberation, Tibet has had prosperous economic growth,” Zhao said.

Everyone in Tibet enjoyed religious freedom and their rights were fully respected, he added.

But critics, led by exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, say Beijing’s rule amounts to “cultural genocide.”

In July, Pompeo said the United States would restrict visas for some Chinese officials involved in blocking diplomatic access to Tibet and engaging in “human rights abuses,” adding that Washington supported “meaningful autonomy” for Tibet.

Despite that, Trump – unlike his predecessor Barack Obama – has not met the Dalai Lama during his presidency.

(Reporting by Matt Spetalnick in Washington and Cate Cadell in Beijing; Editing by Tom Brown and Alex Richardson)

Landslide buries mountain village in southwest China, fears for 141 people

People search for survivors at the site of a landslide that destroyed some 40 households, where more than 100 people are feared to be buried, local media reports, in Xinmo Village, Sichuan Province, China June 24, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

BEIJING (Reuters) – Fears grew for 141 people missing in China after a landslide buried their mountain village in southwestern Sichuan province on Saturday, with reports that only three survivors had been pulled out of the mud and rock hours after the calamity struck.

The landslide swept over 46 homes as dawn broke at around 6 a.m. in Xinmo village in Maoxian county, a remote mountainous area of north Sichuan close to the region of Tibet, according to the official Xinhua state news agency.

President Xi Jinping urged on the rescue effort, but state broadcaster CCTV reported that by midday the only people rescued were a couple and their two-month-old baby.

Xinhua said the estimated number of missing was provided by local authorities.

The landslide blocked a two-kilometer (1.24 miles) stretch of a nearby river and 1.6 kilometers of road, according to Xinhua.

State television reports showed villagers and rescuers scrambling over mounds of mud and rocks that had slid down the mountainside. Xinhua said there were 400 people involved in the rescue effort and 6 ambulances were at the scene, and more were on their way.

The television images showed water thick with mud flowing over the site, submerging a car pushed from the road, while police and residents pulled on ropes to try to dislodge large boulders.

Police have closed roads in the county to all traffic except emergency services, the news agency said.

There is an extensive network of dams in the region, including two hydropower plants in Diexi town near the buried village.

A researcher from the Chengdu Chinese Academy of Social Science, a state-backed think tank, told China Radio International that heavy rainfall probably caused the slide. The researcher, whose name wasn’t given, also warned of the risk that a dam could collapse, endangering communities further downstream.

The area is prone to earthquakes, including one in 1933 that resulted in parts of Diexi town becoming submerged by a nearby lake, and an 8.0 magnitude tremor in central Sichuan’s Wenchuan county in 2008 that killed nearly 70,000 people.

(Reporting by Christian Shepherd; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

36 Bodies Found In Tibet Landslide

State media are reporting that 36 bodies have been recovered from a landslide in Tibet.

Thousands of workers have arrived on the scene to keep digging for the remaining bodies. According to the mining company who owns the site, 83 miners were buried in the slide. The landslide happened about 45 miles east of the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. Continue reading