Editor's note: The Alaska meeting is the first high-level meeting between China and the U.S. under the Biden administration. The unusual public spat between the two sides is a hot issue over the media. How to evaluate the significance of the meeting? Zhou Bo, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Strategy, Tsinghua University, shared his views. The transcript is edited for brevity and clarity. It reflects the author's views and not necessarily those of CGTN.

The Alaska meeting is unusual in many ways. First of all, before the official talk started, there were open remarks from the two sides. And these open remarks turned out to be very exceptional and became almost a tit-for-tat. And this has a lot to do with the current China-U.S. relationship, which is being perceived as great power competition by the U.S. side.

What is most unusual about the meeting is that before the Chinese delegation's departure for Alaska, the U.S. sanctioned 24 Chinese officials. I believe this is a deliberate move. By doing so, the U.S. intended to exert pressure on the Chinese delegation to try to force China to back down.

During the China-U.S. Anchorage dialogue, Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, delivered a 16-minute speech. He has done this for a reason. He has actually given full vent to his pent-up anger on what he perceived to be unjustifiable to China.

This Alaska meeting will be remembered in history as a kind of showing strength probably by the two sides as equals. If we look into the future, we might conclude that the China-U.S. relations combine both cooperation and competition.

I hope that cooperation can prevail in China-U.S. relations despite competition between the two economies. But it seems this is not the case. This is not the atmosphere. We just hope that we can still manage to cooperate wherever we can. And this is the significance of the meeting. The two countries still have room for cooperation. 

The other issue is the two countries can prevent confrontation even if competition prevails in the relationship. This is a major task for both of us. On that, we still have a lot of work to do in the future.

There are a lot of areas where China and the U.S. can cooperate. For example, on regional issues, be it, Afghanistan, the ROK, the DPRK or Iran. We can also cooperate in risk reduction – that is not to let competition slide into confrontation between us. 

When I talk about this, I'm referring to two particular places, one is the South China Sea and the other is the Taiwan Straits.

The American navy has been conducting the so-called "freedom navigation operations" in the South China Sea on a regular basis. China would read it as a kind of a provocation to China's sovereignty and territorial integrity because these kinds of operations are just conducted in the waters of Chinese islands and rocks. But Americans would read it another way. They consider they are challenging China's excessive claims, which China definitely denies. But if the two countries could not find middle ground in this area, it might turn into a dangerous situation. 

Cooperation between China and the U.S. is not only limited to the regional and global issues. It could also cover the very important aspect of a bilateral relationship – which is risk reduction.

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