Pompeo, Top Chinese Envoy Meet Amid Heightened Tensions

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with his Chinese counterpart in Hawaii, part of an effort by Washington and Beijing to manage a relationship that has badly deteriorated over issues ranging from the status of Hong Kong and Taiwan to the coronavirus pandemic.

The talks began when Mr. Pompeo met over dinner Tuesday night with China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, and resumed Wednesday morning at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

Statements by each side after the talks ended laid bare their deep differences although the Chinese asserted the talks were constructive. The two diplomats didn’t say when they might meet again.

According to an account by State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus, Mr. Pompeo used the talks to stress the need for “fully reciprocal dealings” on commercial, security and diplomatic issues.

Mr. Pompeo also called for “full transparency and information sharing” on the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Ortagus said. U.S. officials have previously complained that China hasn’t provided samples of the virus or cooperated with international efforts to investigate its origins in Wuhan.

A statement issued by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian listed a series of “sensitive issues” in which he said Mr. Yang had defended Beijing’s position. They included China’s insistence that Washington desist from meddling in matters related to Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its territory, as well as the Chinese leadership’s view that its plans to impose national-security legislation on Hong Kong are “purely China’s internal affairs.”

Mr. Yang also conveyed Beijing’s “strong dissatisfaction” with the bill Mr. Trump signed Wednesday mandating sanctions against Chinese officials and entities deemed responsible for China’s mass-detention and surveillance program targeting Muslim minorities in the country’s northwestern Xinjiang region.

The two sides didn’t even agree on who had proposed the talks in the first place. U.S. officials have said in recent days that it was China that sought the meeting, but a Chinese account said that it had taken place at the invitation of the U.S.

The talks came as President Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton was preparing to publish a tell-all memoir that includes revelations about Mr. Trump’s rapport with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. According to an excerpt published Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Bolton describes an incoherent policy approach to China driven in large part by Mr. Trump’s desire for Mr. Xi’s assistance with his re-election campaign.

Former U.S. officials said before the meeting that it is likely China sought the meeting in the hope of discouraging tougher American responses on the security, economic and foreign-policy disputes that divide the two sides.

“The big issues on China’s mind are Hong Kong, Taiwan and the economy,” said Daniel Russel, who served as the top State Department official for Asia during the Obama administration and is vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“It would be normal for Yang to use this meeting to lower the temperature on Hong Kong, reassuring Pompeo that the national security law is not as bad as people claim,” Mr. Russel said.

“On Taiwan, expect him to try to ward off further action like high-level meetings with Taiwanese officials or even a U.S. naval ship visit to a Taiwanese port,” he added. “The Chinese may also be worried that Trump might abandon the trade deal in favor of looking tough and reimposing large-scale tariffs.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee, has taken a tough stance against China in recent months, raising the possibility that the U.S. was headed toward a broad consensus on the need to step up pressure on Beijing.

“The Chinese see that both of the candidates are criticizing China and are concerned that relations are going to deteriorate further,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They are worried that hitting the reset button will be difficult if this relationship deteriorates to the point that everybody agrees that this is Cold War 2.0.” she added. “They want to send some messages in the hope of getting a few issues under control.”

The very fact that the meeting is happening at all is seen by some experts as a noteworthy development, coming as it does during a period of little high-level bilateral diplomacy.

Mr. Pompeo was accompanied by Stephen Biegun, the deputy secretary of state who also serves as the chief U.S. negotiator on North Korea, and David Stilwell, the assistant secretary of State for Asia.

While the statements the two sides issued didn’t mention North Korea’s growing tensions with South Korea, analysts said that Mr. Biegun’s presence suggests that the issue was discussed.

The public relationship between Mr. Pompeo and the Chinese government has been acrimonious in recent months. As Mr. Pompeo has amped up criticism of China over the pandemic, Chinese state media—which answer to the Communist Party—has savaged him by name in commentaries, with rhetoric recalling the radical Mao era. Mr. Pompeo has been called “wicked,” “deranged” and “the public enemy of mankind.”

As the meeting got under way in Hawaii, Mr. Pompeo and other top diplomats from the Group of Seven released a statement expressing “grave concern” about China’s decision to introduce a national-security law in Hong Kong, saying it would curtail the population’s rights and freedoms. Mr. Yang opposed that statement as well, according to China’s official account.

“It’s really about crisis management, and is there anything they can possibly do to turn down the temperature,” said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS. “They really need to talk.”

Messrs. Pompeo and Yang have spoken three times this year by phone, according to State Department releases, yet their last meeting was 10 months ago in New York. Messrs. Trump and Xi, who previously had a warm working relationship, also haven’t spoken much lately, although the two leaders had what Mr. Trump called a “very good conversation” in late March.

Photo: The public relationship between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Chinese government has been acrimonious in recent months. - ANDREW HARNIK/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES