U.S. attacks China for failing to extradite NSA leaker Snowden

PanARMENIAN.Net - The U.S. has attacked China for failing to extradite National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden when he was in Hong Kong, Belfast Telegraph said.

The criticism came at the end of two days of high-level talks between the U.S. and China on security and the economy.

The world's two largest economies announced their plans to negotiate a bilateral investment treaty and for more co-operation on combating climate change.

But Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said the U.S. was very disappointed with how authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong handled Snowden's case by refusing to extradite him before he flew from Hong Kong to Russia.

"China's handling of this case was not consistent with... the new type of relationship that we both seek to build," he said, referring to the summit a month ago between President Barack Obama and China's new president, Xi Jinping, in California.

Obama also expressed disappointment about the Snowden case when he met the two leaders of the Chinese delegation on Thursday, July 11 in the Oval Office, a White House statement said.

State Councillor Yang Jiechi retorted in his remarks at the talks that the handling of the Snowden case by authorities in semi-autonomous Hong Kong was "beyond reproach".

He also rejected U.S. criticism of China's rights record in the ethnic minority areas of Tibet and Xinjiang, saying people there are "enjoying happier lives and they enjoy unprecedented freedom and human rights".

And he added: "We hope the U.S. will improve its own human rights situation."