Not as tense as previous meetings... but looking at Blinky for 5 hours, still torturous.
Exclusive: Chinese and US senior officials hold “well-communicated” five-hour meeting in Bali
By Global Times Published: Jul 10, 2022 08:41 PM
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Bali on July 9. Source: AFP
Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a "comprehensive, in-depth, candid and efficient conversation" with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to which the two sides attached great importance, after attending the G20 Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Bali on Saturday, the Global Times has learned.
The meeting in Bali lasted more than five hours, which is a long time for a one-on-one meeting and has been rare in ministerial level talks in recent years, the Global Times learned from the meeting.
Simultaneous interpretation was adopted throughout the meeting, it also learned that means the two sides were able to have thorough communication on a wide range of issues in China-US relations, conducive to delivering clear messages from both sides.
Among the interactions between Chinese and senior officials of the Biden administration, the Anchorage meeting in March 2021 was the longest, with the two sides meeting three times in a row, each time lasting about three hours.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman visited China and held six-hour talks with State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng in Tianjin in July 2021. "The two sides had a very deep and thorough discussion," the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in its description of the meeting.
Both China and the US believe that the dialogue in Bali was substantive and constructive, and will help to enhance mutual understanding, reduce misunderstanding and miscalculation, and pave the way for future high-level exchanges between the two countries, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
The Chinese side described the meeting as "substantive" and "constructive" in the press release, which means that the two sides had a pragmatic discussion and covered comprehensive bilateral relations and specific issues in bilateral relations, an analyst told the Global Times.
The meeting was "constructive" in that some consensus was reached and some specific and outstanding issues were resolved, as can be seen from the press release, the analyst said, adding that the US has also made some positive statements, but it is more important for the US to implement what it has pledged in talks and China will observe if the US actions match its words.
