Blinken presses China on Xinjiang, Hong Kong in call with Beijing’s top diplomat

Blinken presses China on Xinjiang, Hong Kong in call with Beijing’s top diplomat

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi in a phone call on Friday the United States will stand up for human rights and democratic values in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, the State Department said.

Blinken also pressed China to condemn the military coup in Myanmar, and he reaffirmed that Washington will work with allies to hold China accountable for efforts to threaten stability of Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, the department said in a statement.

Yang told Blinken that the United States should "correct“ its recent mistakes and that both sides must respect each other's political systems and development paths, according to a statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.

The relationship between the world's two biggest economies hit its lowest point in decades during the presidency of Donald Trump, and Chinese officials have expressed cautious optimism that it would improve under the administration of Joe Biden.

Yang told an online forum on Tuesday that he hoped relations between the two countries could return to a predictable and constructive track, but he called on the United States to "stop interfering“ on issues of Chinese sovereignty, including Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Tibet.

Foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin