US China policy chief meets Beijing’s top borders official

The top US official on China policy has held “constructive and candid” talks with the Chinese borders chief in Beijing, the State Department said Friday.

Mark B. Lambert, the U.S. Department of State China coordinator and deputy assistant secretary for China and Taiwan, met the Chinese Director-General for Boundary and Ocean Affairs Hong Liang on Friday.

“The two sides held substantive, constructive, and candid discussions on a range of maritime issues, including the situation in the South China Sea and East China Sea,” the State Department said in a statement.

It said the US “underscored concerns” with Beijing’s “dangerous and unlawful actions in the South China Sea,” including China’s “obstruction” last month of a Philippine resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal and “its unsafe intercept of a U.S. aircraft on October 24.”

The meeting follows other recent high-level diplomacy, including talks between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Washington as the two countries try to smooth ties. (BSS/AFP)