Media retailers reporting on the weekend assembly between Chinese language Director of the Workplace of the Central International Affairs Fee Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines of the Munich Safety Convention should not encouraging.

Bloomberg (gated), says the 2:

• traded barbs on all the pieces from the balloon and Taiwan to North Korea and Russia
• The rocky assembly and sharp rhetoric round it demonstrated simply how bitter the US-China relationship is, and the way each side seem keen to squabble over petty points. In its readout of the talks, China refused even to name it a gathering, referring to it as an “casual contact” and arguing that the 2 solely spoke as a result of the US made a request.

Additionally from the weekend: