CHINA’S top diplomat met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken today in Indonesian capital Jakarta.

Wang Yi, who heads the Chinese Communist Party’s central commission for foreign affairs, met with Mr Blinken on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) summit.

US spokesman Matthew Miller said that Mr Blinken raised concerns about alleged Chinese actions in the Taiwan Strait and made it clear that the US “will advance our vision for a free, open and rules-based international order.”

Mr Miller said that the meeting was part of ongoing efforts between the two nations “to maintain open channels of communication” and to reduce  any “risk of misperception and miscalculation.”

According to the Chinese foreign ministry, Mr Wang told Mr Blinken that the US should stop interfering in China’s domestic affairs and that they should work with Beijing to improve the relationship between the two countries.

Mr Wang, Mr Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were attending the Jakarta meetings with counterparts in Asean where members of the 10-nation regional bloc have raised concerns about being caught up in the competing interests of the major powers.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo delivered a pointed message during his address to the summit.

He said: “Asean should not be a competition arena and should not be a proxy for any country, and international law must be consistently respected.”

Following meetings with Mr Wang and some of his Asean counterparts, Mr Lavrov told reporters that he had stressed that Russia and China “respect the principles” of Asean’s central role in the region. 

But Mr Lavrov accused the US and its Nato allies of trying to undermine Asean, claiming that “they are pushing this idea that the security of the Euro-Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific regions are indivisible.”