China's top diplomat: 'Negative factors' emerging in relations with America

On the last day of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to China, Beijing has warned of a deterioration in relations between the two powers.

China's chief diplomat Wang Yi said in Beijing on Friday that although the two sides are talking to each other again, “negative factors” have increased in relations between the US and China.

Wang cited China's right to development as being “unreasonably suppressed” as one reason. According to him, the question before both the countries is whether their relations will either remain stable or move towards decline.

According to American media reports, Blinken said that progress has been made in some areas to reduce the distance between the two countries. However, he wanted to express clearly and directly the issues on which there were differences of opinion with China.

US press reports said Blinken addressed points of difference with China regarding unfair trade practices in talks with Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining on Thursday. During his three-day visit to China, Blinken also met with students and US business representatives in Shanghai.

After a year of complete radio silence, US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met in person near San Francisco last November to stabilize strained relations.

However, since then, new controversies have continued to emerge over political and economic issues.

China is angry at US sanctions in the technology sector or against Chinese companies supplying components that could be used in Russia's war machine against Ukraine.

Washington is concerned about Chinese influence and recently passed a law to force Chinese company ByteDance to divest itself of its video-sharing platform TikTok in the US.