BEIJING: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed lifting sanctions against Chinese companies and individuals in a meeting with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Munich Security Conference, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Saturday.

Both sides also discussed facilitating people-to-people exchanges in the meeting held on Friday, the ministry said, adding the exchanges between the two were “frank, substantial and constructive”.

“Making ‘de-risking’ into ‘de-China’, and building ‘small yards and high walls’ and seeking ‘decoupling from China’” will only backfire on the US itself, Wang said, according to a statement from the foreign ministry.

Both sides also exchanged views on regional issues including the Ukraine crisis and the Korean Peninsula, the statement said, without giving further details. It added the Korean Peninsula envoys of both sides will “stay in touch”.

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China and the US have made some progress in bilateral relations since Chinese President Xi Jinping held talks with President Joe Biden in November, where they reached agreements covering fentanyl, military communications and artificial intelligence on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

China and the US held their first joint meeting of a working group on fentanyl precursor chemicals in Beijing in late January and China’s financial officials hosted US Treasury officials earlier this month.