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US, China agree to hold senior-level talks
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-04-09 09:35
The United States and China have agreed for the first time ever to hold
regular, senior-level talks on a whole range of political and economic issues,
the US State Department said.
The talks were a recognition of the "role that China is playing in Asia, in
global affairs, as a member of the UN Security Council," and based on a need to
have more regular bilateral discussions on world issues, department spokesman
Richard Boucher told reporters.
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick
will head a US delegation to hold regular, senior-level talks on a whole
range of political and economic issues with China.
[AFP] | The decision to hold the discussions was
reached between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Chinese leaders
during her visit to Beijing last month, Boucher said.
The details, structure and timing of the talks are still to be worked out, he
said.
But The Washington Post said Friday quoting senior US administration
officials that the meetings, which the US government had chosen to call a
"global dialogue," will be headed by Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick.
Security would also feature in the talks, it said.
The place for the first meeting is undecided with China favoring Beijing and
the United States, Washington, the officials said.
A Chinese vice foreign minister will head the Chinese delegation at the
regular meetings, which have never been held at such a senior level the they
said.
"We have, over the past several years, I think, been able to enhance our
cooperation with China on many of these issues, whether it's North Korea, the
fight against terrorism, we need to work with them in Sudan, all these things,"
Boucher said.
"And so in addition to continue in a dialogue on economic issues, that's
been, I think, useful and important to us, we want to have a dialogue that goes
to other issues as well," he added.
The talks both signify China's interest in the prestige of such sessions and
Washington's efforts to come to terms with China's rising influence in Asia, the
officials said.
The US has chosen to call the talks a "global dialogue," the officials told
the daily, to differentiate them from the "strategic dialogue" the US holds with
its allies.
Asked whether the talks would be at the level of a strategic dialogue that
the United States had with, for example, India, Boucher said: "I would call it
regular senior-level talks."
Jian Quan, a visiting Chinese diplomat, told The Washington Post the meetings
would provide "a platform, a basis for the two countries to have direct, frank
and deep dialogue."
He said that "through such effective communication, both sides would be in
the position to avoid actions and policies that would lead to
misunderstandings."
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