Senior US, Chinese Diplomats Hold ‘Candid’ Talks To Avoid Escalation of Tensions 

US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink leaves a hotel during his visit to Beijing, China June 6, 2023. (Reuters)
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink leaves a hotel during his visit to Beijing, China June 6, 2023. (Reuters)
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Senior US, Chinese Diplomats Hold ‘Candid’ Talks To Avoid Escalation of Tensions 

US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink leaves a hotel during his visit to Beijing, China June 6, 2023. (Reuters)
US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink leaves a hotel during his visit to Beijing, China June 6, 2023. (Reuters)

Senior US and Chinese diplomats held “candid and productive” talks in Beijing and agreed to keep open lines of communication to avoid tensions from spiraling into conflict, officials said Tuesday.

Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant US secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was the most senior US official confirmed to have visited China on Monday since tensions between Washington and Beijing soared over the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon over the US in early February.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the time postponed a planned trip to China, and Beijing has since largely rebuffed attempts at official exchanges, though two top US and Chinese defense officials briefly interacted at a forum in Singapore over the weekend.

China’s Foreign Ministry said Kritenbrink and Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu “had candid, constructive and fruitful communication on promoting the improvement of China-US relations and properly managing differences.”

Beijing said it had stated its “solemn position on Taiwan” — a self-ruled island China claims as its territory to be annexed by force if necessary — and other issues and that the two sides had agreed to maintain communication.

The US State Department also said the two officials held “candid and productive discussions as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and build on recent high-level diplomacy between the two countries.”

The US Navy on Sunday complained about an “unsafe interaction” in the Taiwan Strait, after a Chinese warship came within 150 yards (137 meters) of a US destroyer. And last month, a Chinese fighter jet flew dangerously close to a US reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea, where Beijing shares overlapping territorial claims with other nations.

CIA Director William Burns last month reportedly took a secret trip to Beijing in another sign the two sides are interested in restoring communication through various channels.



Israel Launches Communications Satellite from Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
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Israel Launches Communications Satellite from Florida

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft lifts off at Launch Complex 39A at NASA Kennedy Space Center before the launch of Axiom Space Axiom Mission on June 25, 2025, in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo/Getty Images/AFP

Israel on Sunday said it had launched a new national communications satellite on board a SpaceX rocket from the United States.

The Dror 1 satellite was blasted into orbit on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the foreign ministry said.

"This $200 million 'smartphone in space' will power Israel's strategic and civilian communications for 15 years," the ministry wrote on X.

Accompanying video footage showed the reusable, two-stage rocket lift off into the night sky. SpaceX said the launch happened at 1:04 am in Florida (0504 GMT Sunday).

IAI, which called the launch "a historic leap for Israeli space technology", said when it announced the project to develop and build Dror 1 that it was "the most advanced communication satellite ever built in Israel".

In September 2016, an unmanned Falcon 9 rocket exploded during a test in Florida, destroying Israel's Amos-6 communications satellite, which was estimated to have cost between $200 and 300 million.