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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (2nd R), joined by national security advisor Jake Sullivan (R), speaks while facing Yang Jiechi (2nd L), director of China's Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, and Wang Yi (L), China's foreign minister, at the opening session of US-China talks at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, on March 18. (AP/Yonhap News)

The first senior-level communication between the US and China in about four months ended without achieving much, except to reaffirm the differences in the two sides' views. This chill between Washington and Beijing appears likely to persist for some time.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported Monday that Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng, who is in charge of China's diplomacy with the US, met earlier that morning in Tianjin with US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.

Xie was quoted as rather pointedly saying that the root cause of the deadlock in China-US relations was because "some Americans portray China as an 'imagined enemy.'" This sort of aggressive attitude recalls the "2+2" senior-level talks the two sides held in Anchorage back in March.

"For quite some time, when talking about conflict with China and challenges facing the U.S., the 'Pearl Harbor moment' and the 'Sputnik moment' have been brought up by some Americans," Xie was quoted as saying.

"Some international scholars, including some U.S. academics, perceive this as comparing China to Japan [which attacked Pearl Harbor] in the Second World War and the Soviet Union [which beat the US to launching the first satellite] in the Cold War," he added.

"The hope may be that by demonizing China, the U.S. could somehow shift domestic public discontent over political, economic and social issues and blame China for its own structural problems," he said..

Characterizing the US strategy, Xie was quoted as saying, "It is as if when China's development is contained, all U.S. domestic and external challenges would go away, and America would become great again and Pax Americana would continue to go on."

He went on to say that the US characterization of relations with China in terms of cooperation, competition, and antagonism was merely a facade for efforts to contain China and rein in its development.

"We urge the United States to change its highly misguided mindset and dangerous policy," he was quoted as saying.

The Chinese news website The Paper also published remarks made by Xie while talking with reporters after his meeting with Sherman.

Explaining that the US "requested China's cooperation and support in connection with climate change and the Iran and North Korea nuclear issues," he was quoted as saying, "China has actually been consistently playing a responsible and constructive role on these issues."

He went on to say that cooperation "must be predicated on mutual interests and rooted in mutual trust."

"The US must realize that it is impossible to ask for cooperation on the one hand while damaging China's interests on the other," he said.

In a Monday readout credited to spokesperson Ned Price, the US State Department said that Sherman had "raised concerns in private — as we have in public — about a range of PRC actions that run counter to our values and interests and those of our allies and partners, and that undermine the international rules-based order."

"In particular, she raised our concerns about human rights, including Beijing's anti-democratic crackdown in Hong Kong; the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang; abuses in Tibet; and the curtailing of media access and freedom of the press," the readout said.

"She also spoke about our concerns about Beijing's conduct in cyberspace; across the Taiwan Strait; and in the East and South China Seas," it continued.

It went on to say that Sherman had expressed the US' concerns about American and Canadian citizens detained in China and the World Health Organization investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus.

"At the same time, the Deputy Secretary affirmed the importance of cooperation in areas of global interest, such as the climate crisis, counternarcotics, nonproliferation, and regional concerns including DPRK, Iran, Afghanistan, and Burma [Myanmar]," it added.

The mention of cooperation came at the very end of the statement. Around half of the actual readout consisted of US concerns about China.

Reuters quoted an anonymous US official as saying that there had been no clearly agreed-upon outcome from the latest senior-level US-China meeting.

By Jung In-hwan, Beijing correspondent

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]