WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged China to reveal all it knows about the coronavirus outbreak in a meeting with a top Chinese official in Hawaii on Wednesday as new revelations about President Donald Trump and China rocked Washington.
Pompeo and his deputy Stephen Biegun held closed-door talks with the Chinese Communist Party’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, at Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, according to a senior State Department official on the base.
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Discussions covered a wide range of contentious issues that have sent relations between the two countries plummeting, according to the two sides.
Pompeo “stressed the need for full transparency and information sharing to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and prevent future outbreaks,” the State Department said in a statement.
Pompeo has joined President Donald Trump in criticizing China’s response to the outbreak, including giving credence to a theory that the virus may have emerged from a Chinese laboratory in the central city of Wuhan. Trump has said he will withdraw funding and cut ties with the World Health Organization over what he alleges is its overly close relationship with China.
Pompeo also “stressed important American interests and the need for fully-reciprocal dealings between the two nations across commercial, security, and diplomatic interactions," the State Department said.
According to China's foreign ministry, Yang expressed “strong dissatisfaciton" with Trump's signing of legislation that would impose financial sanctions and visa bans on Chinese government officials deemed guilty of persecuting Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
China is accused of incarcerating more than a million Muslims in prison-like reeducation camps that it says are needed to counter Islamic radicalism and separatism and teach job skills.
The ministry also said Yang reiterated opposition to U.S. intervention in the issues of Taiwan — the self-governing democratic island and U.S. ally that China claims as its own territory and threatens to invade — and Hong Kong, where China intends to impose legislation that could have major effects on free speech and opposition political activity.
No reporters were allowed to travel with Pompeo and Biegun, and coverage of the event was extremely limited.
The meeting, which lasted more than six hours including a lunch break, wrapped up about 3:50 p.m. Hawaii time (0150 Thursday GMT), said a senior State Department official who attended it.
The talks got underway shortly after explosive details from a new book by Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton began to emerge.
Bolton alleges that Trump sought China’s help in winning reelection in 2020 by ending a trade war and encouraged the Chinese leader to build camps for Uighurs in western China.
On Wednesday, Trump signed a bill that seeks to punish China for its crackdown on the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities. The legislation, which Congress passed with little opposition, includes sanctions on Chinese officials involved in the mass surveillance and detention.
Trade and human rights — along with China's policies toward Hong Kong and its response to the coronavirus pandemic — were among the most divisive matters expected to be on Pompeo and Biegun's agenda with Yang.
In his book, Bolton writes that Trump appealed for Xi's help in getting a second term at a G-20 leaders dinner in Osaka, Japan.
“Trump then, stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome," Bolton wrote.
Bolton also wrote that Pompeo, who led Trump’s early outreach to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un before handing the reins to Biegun, was highly skeptical of the effort and never believed a deal was possible. Biegun's presence at the Hawaii meeting suggested that deadlocked U.S.-North Korea talks would also be a topic of conversation.
The State Department had no comment on any aspect of Bolton's book and referred questions to the White House.
Despite Bolton's portrayal of Trump being enthralled with Xi, China has become a key element in the 2020 presidential campaign, with Trump and his supporters seeking to make the administration’s tough stance with Beijing a main foreign policy selling point. They have also painted Democratic candidate Joe Biden as being soft on China.
Last month, Trump and Pompeo announced that the U.S. would be rescinding special trade and economic privileges it had extended to Hong Kong after the former British territory reverted to Chinese control in 1997.
Since last year, both sides have ramped up hostile rhetoric and taken reciprocal steps to expel journalists and restrict diplomats’ ability to travel.