Chinese, US Cabinet-level Officials Meet in HawaiiAs officials from the United States and China held their highest level meeting since the spy plane crisis, Chinese finance minister on Thursday signaled the Chinese were ready to set the incident aside to prevent a further deterioration of Sino-US relations.Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng and US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill met on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank, primarily to discuss economic issues. ``The only thing they talked about was their respective economies," said US Treasury spokesman Michele Davis. She declined to provide any further details about the meeting. Before the session with O'Neill, Xiang told reporters ``there has been satisfactory resolution to the troubles'' between Beijing and Washington. He also said Beijing did not see the dispute as having strained relations more severely than past diplomatic showdowns, say, the 1999 NATO bombing of Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia. Xiang gave no indication new agreements had been reached on the issue but made it clear the conflict would not remain an obstacle to returning US-Chinese relations to a more normal footing. ``Secretary O'Neill (and I) share a consensus that we need to talk'' to resolve any outstanding issues,'' Xiang said. ``I trust Secretary O'Neill will ask me whatever questions he has and tell me whatever he wishes to tell." The last high-level meeting between Chinese and US officials was in March when Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen visited the White House. Relations between the two countries took a steep downturn after the April 1 collision between a U.S. Navy EP-3E surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet over the South China Sea. The Chinese plane crashed, killing the pilot, and the U.S. plane made an emergency landing on China's Hainan Island. |
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