WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The USA said on Monday it had taken note of the Communist Party congress in strategic rival China that confirmed Xi Jinping in an unprecedented third term as leader, and stressed the importance of keeping lines of communication open.
Whilst the White House reiterated the Biden administration’s concentrate on “responsibly managing” competition with China and desire to cooperate in areas of mutual interest, prosecutors in Latest York said they’d charged two Chinese nationals with attempting to obstruct prosecution of a serious Chinese telecommunications company.
State Department spokesperson Ned Price told an everyday briefing the party congress wouldn’t bring a change within the U.S. approach to China, which he referred to by the initials of its official name.
“We do note the conclusion of the twentieth Party Congress and we might welcome cooperation of the PRC where our interests align, and that features cooperation on climate change and global health, counter narcotics, non-proliferation as well,” he said, stressing that it was “perhaps essentially the most consequential bilateral relationship we’ve got.”
White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told a separate briefing President Joe Biden and Xi had spoken five times as leaders, but said she had nothing to share a couple of possible first in-person meeting as leaders on the G20 summit in Indonesia next month.
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“We proceed our efforts to maintain lines of communication open, including on the leader level,” she said. “We consider it necessary to maintain those conversations ongoing and we are going to proceed to try this.”
Xi secured an unprecedented third leadership term on Sunday and introduced a top governing body stacked with loyalists, cementing his place as China’s strongest ruler since Mao Zedong.
During Xi’s tenure, China’s relations with Washington have plummeted and fears have risen that the 2 superpowers with the world’s biggest economies could change into engaged in a conflict over Taiwan, a self-administered U.S.-backed island China claims as its own.
An individual accustomed to the matter identified the Chinese telecommunications company within the Latest York case as Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, which has been at the middle of U.S. disputes with China over alleged espionage and technology theft.
U.S. prosecutors said the case was representative of a broader pattern of illegal influence efforts by China, and announced they’d also charged 11 people in two other cases with spying for Beijing or intimidating Chinese dissidents.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Steve Holland, David Brunnstrom and Simon Lewis; Editing by Stephen Coates)
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