Secretary of State Antony Blinken was joined in Anchorage by Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden's national security adviser, to meet with their Chinese counterparts, State Councilor Wang Yi and Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs chief Yang Jiechi, for two days of talks in their first face-to-face meetings.
Blinken opened his remarks by saying Beijing needed to return to a rules-based system, lambasting China for violating international norms through their crackdown on Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang, cyber attacks against the U.S. and "economic coercion".
China's Yang Jiechi replied with a lengthy lecture against the U.S. that went on for so long the subsequent translation took 17 minutes. According to a senior official, there had been an agreement that each side would speak for two minutes at a photo opportunity before the session began.
"China is firmly opposed to U.S. interference in China's internal affairs. We have expressed our staunch opposition to such interference, and we will take firm actions in response of human rights. We hope that the United States will do better on human rights", he said, referring to the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. "China has made steady progress in human rights".
He added, "And the United States has United States-style democracy. And China has Chinese-style democracy. It is not just up to the American people, but also the people of the world, to evaluate how the United States has done in advancing its own democracy in China's case, after decades of reform and opening up, we have come a long way in various fields".
Blinken then signaled for the news cameras to stay so that he could rebut the criticism of U.S democracy, noting the Chinese officials' lengthy remarks. Sullivan followed suit. Blinken then attempted to dismiss the press pool but the Chinese officials insisted they be given the chance to offer their own second round.
This spat turned a four-minute photo-op into a diplomatic spat that lasted more than an hour.
