Reuters (March 20) quoted Major General Yao Yunzhu, who retired from the PLA think-tank Academy of Military Sciences (AMS) and is presently Director Emeritus of the Centre on China-America Defence Relations under the AMS, as saying at the China Development Forum attended by an international audience of business and policy leaders forum in Beijing on March 20 that the failure of this week's United States-China meeting to build strategic trust has heightened the need for Beijing and Washington to improve their crisis management regime. Major General Yao Yunzhu said, "Now that we cannot depend on strategic trust, as shown by the ongoing Anchorage meeting, to avoid crisis, we have to improve our crisis management regime, including updating the code of behaviour at close encounters." She also said that both countries should agree on a more extensive concept for strategic stability than what the US and Soviet Union had during the Cold War, which had been based on the capability to mutually destroy each other using nuclear weapons. China and the US should work together to set standards for whether emerging technologies such as space, cyber and artificial intelligence should be used, or how they can be used, by the military. Excluding each other from this standard setting process will bring about "grave consequences", she warned.

Wu Xinbo, Director of the Centre for American Studies at Fudan University, referring to the combative tone of the meeting said “[That] surprised me a lot. It’s really rare to see in a diplomatic setting.” He described the harsh comments from China’s foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi, a relatively traditional diplomat who is very particular about the appropriate etiquette in these settings, were particularly striking. Pointing to the U.S. sanctions of 24 officials of China and Hongkong, Wu Xinbo said the Chinese side had been frustrated with the actions of the US before the talks. He said “China cannot accept that the United States is trying to put pressure on China to make concessions in the opening remarks.” “There is a Chinese saying that ugly words should be said behind closed doors. However, the US is unwilling to respect China and its dialogue lacks sincerity”. He added, “Yang’s remarks reflected that we are not frightened by Biden’s strong position, and our diplomats are fighting on the front line.”

Wu Qiang, a Beijing-based political analyst, said the combative approach indicated that both sides are aware that their differences could not be bridged. He said, “They will just stick to their original judgments about the other side and prepare for a long-term struggle.”