(Adds China foreign ministry statement)
WASHINGTON, Feb 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony
Blinken told top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in a phone call on
Friday the United States will stand up for human rights and
democratic values in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, the State
Department said.
Blinken also pressed China to condemn the military coup in
Myanmar, and he reaffirmed that Washington will work with allies
to hold China accountable for efforts to threaten stability of
Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, the department
said in a statement.
Yang told Blinken that the United States should "correct"
its recent mistakes and that both sides must respect each
other's political systems and development paths, according to a
statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.
The relationship between the world's two biggest economies
hit its lowest point in decades during the presidency of Donald
Trump, and Chinese officials have expressed cautious optimism
that it would improve under the administration of Joe Biden.
Yang told an online forum on Tuesday that he hoped relations
between the two countries could return to a predictable and
constructive track, but he called on the United States to "stop
interfering" on issues of Chinese sovereignty, including
Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet. Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin also said on Friday
that "the common interests of the two countries outweighed their
differences" and urged the United States to "meet China halfway"
to improve relations.
However, criticism of China's human rights record has
continued unabated, with the State Department saying on Thursday
that it was "deeply disturbed" by reports of sexual abuse
against women in internment camps for ethnic Uighurs and other
Muslims in Xinjiang.
Biden himself has shown little sign he is in a hurry to
engage with Beijing, describing China on Thursday as "our most
serious competitor" and saying Washington would continue to
confront what he described as China's "attack on human rights,
intellectual property and global governance".
"But we're ready to work with Beijing, when it's in
America's interest to do so," he added.
The Global Times, a tabloid run by Chinese Communist Party
paper the People's Daily, said in an editorial on Saturday that
it expected the Biden administration to keep talking tough while
improving cooperation in some areas.
"This is obviously different from the later period of
Trump's administration, which had only hyped up antagonism
between China and the U.S.," it said.