Top US and Chinese diplomats meet as tensions roil Middle East
Published in News & Features
Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in New York on Friday, in what will be one of their last face-to-face encounters before the U.S. presidential election that will shape the course of U.S.-China relations for the next four years.
The two met for more than an hour on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, according to a State Department spokesperson, who didn’t detail what they discussed.
The meeting had been planned for several days but occurred with tensions spiking again in the Middle East after Israel conducted a massive airstrike on Hezbollah’s headquarters in Beirut.
Officials from the U.S. and China have also sought to step up contacts following a November meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Blinken called out China for its support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine during a meeting of the U.N. Security Council this week.
“China, another permanent member of this council, is the top provider of machine tools, microelectronics, and other items that Russia is using to rebuild, to restock, to ramp up its war machine and sustain its brutal aggression,” Blinken told the council.
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