US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman spoke with China's newly appointed ambassador to the United States on Tuesday to follow up on issues discussed during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Beijing last week, the State Department said.
Sherman's call with Xie Feng was "substantive" and meant to "follow up" on Blinken's trip to the Chinese capital earlier this month, said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who declined to provide further details.
The deputy secretary of state, who will retire from her post at the end of this month, held the call just a week after US President Joe Biden's remarks likened his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to a "dictator", sparking a diplomatic row. Xie warned of "consequences" against the US for the negative comments about China's top leader.
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"There are a number of conversations that are happening at the sub-cabinet level now about following up on some of the issues that the secretary discussed," Miller said in a regular briefing in Washington on Tuesday.
US and Chinese officials have had discussions since Blinken's visit about when a proposed visit to Washington by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang might occur, but the visit had yet to be scheduled, Miller added.
The State Department said in a readout released ahead of Tuesday's briefing that Sherman "reiterated ... the importance of maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues".
"She noted that the United States would continue to use diplomacy to raise areas of concern as well as areas of potential cooperation where our interests align," according to the readout.
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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