The US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Rome on Sunday that the United States has not changed its one-China policy in relation to Taiwan.
The two senior diplomats met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit, which Wang is attending on behalf of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Blinken made clear that Washington had not changed its one-China policy regarding Taiwan, and both sides acknowledged that open lines of communication were paramount, South China Morning Post quoted Reuters as reporting a senior State Department official as saying.
In their first face-to-face exchange since a fiery encounter in Alaska in March, Blinken also told Wang that the US opposed actions by Beijing that raised tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
According to the South China Morning Post, the People’s Liberation Army Air force has flown a record 450 sorties across the Taiwan Strait since January, mostly towards the island’s southwest – with 149 flights in the first four days of October, compared with 380 for all of last year.
After the meeting on Sunday, State Department spokesman Ned Price said that the US and China had areas of common interest and could work together on North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Afghanistan, and the climate crisis.
KI/PR