U.S. tells China to improve ties with Australia: U.S. official
SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Biden administration has told China that normalising relations with Australia is a precondition to Washington taking any substantial step towards improving relations with Beijing, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.
In an interview with The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, the U.S. president’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell, said China’s “economic coercion” of Australia had been raised in every meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials and “will be underscored in interactions in Anchorage later this week”.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and State Councillor Wang Yi on March 18 in Alaska, the first high-level in-person contact between the two countries under the Biden administration.
“We have made clear that the U.S. is not prepared to improve relations in a bilateral and separate context at the same time that a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion,” Campbell told The Sydney Morning Herald in an interview published on Tuesday.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-china-usa/u-s-tells-china-to-improve-ties-with-australia-u-s-official-idUSKBN2B80F9?il=0