Washington---US and Chinese diplomats launched talks on maritime disputes and cyber hacking Monday as Washington pledged to pull no punches in seeking to resolve simmering problems between the two world powers.
About 400 Chinese officials have converged on Washington for the annual talks now in their seventh year being hosted by Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, US officials said.
"The United States is firmly committed to improving its relationship with China," said State Department spokesman John Kirby.
"While our countries disagree on many points, we recognize that there are many areas for mutually beneficial cooperation," he told reporters, adding there was "no problem can't be better addressed with US-China cooperative efforts."
The two-day Strategic and Economic Dialogue kicks off properly on Tuesday with Kerry and China's State Councilor Yang Jiechi.
But Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken led initial closed-door talks on tough security issues Monday with China's Executive Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui.
A senior State Department official said the security talks were the highest level exchanges between military and civilian leaders from both nations.
Blinken hosted a welcome dinner on Sunday night, ahead of Monday's three working groups on maritime and cyber issues as well as military-to-military relations.
There is also a group on nuclear and space cooperation, and a separate international affairs panel discussing everything from Iran to North Korea and Afghanistan.
The annual talks were important "because of the ability it gives us to break through stovepipes in the government and reach across agencies and deliver messages to people outside of our normal channels of communication," said a senior State Department official.
So far, the discussions have been "candid and to the point."
The world's two leading economies remain at odds over China's claims to much of the South China Sea and Washington has repeatedly urged Beijing to stop building artificial islands in the key waterway.
Ties have also strained over US accusations of cyber espionage.
A bilateral cyber working group was suspended by Beijing last year after Washington indicted five Chinese military officers for hacking into US computers to pilfer intellectual property and US government secrets.
And this week's talks come hot on the heels of the revelations of devastating breaches of US government computer networks.
The US administration has not openly accused Beijing of being behind the hacking of as many as 14 million employee records of the Office of Personnel Management, but the massive data breach is under investigation by the FBI.
AFP
