US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a \"good\" meeting on Thursday in which they agreed that the Strait of Hormuz \"must remain open\", the White House said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Iran has largely blocked shipping through the vital waterway, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas normally passes, since the outbreak of war with the United States and Israel on February 28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"The two sides agreed that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open to support the free flow of energy,\" the White House said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China is directly affected by the lack of petroleum crossing the Strait of Hormuz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More than half of the crude imported by sea to China comes from the Middle East and mainly transits through the strait, according to maritime analytics firm Kpler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to the White House, Xi expressed an interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China's dependence on the strait in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beijing's own readout of the meeting did not mention any such interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For its part, the White House statement did not mention any discussions between the two leaders on Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing and a sensitive subject in US-China diplomacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Xi earlier warned that \"conflict\" between China and the United States could break out, should the issue be mishandled, Chinese state media had reported.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping held a \"good\" meeting on Thursday in which they agreed that the Strait of Hormuz \"must remain open\", the White House said. Iran has largely blocked shipping through the vital waterway, through which a fifth of the world's oil and natural gas normally passes, since […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":34210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,97,93],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-34209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bangladesh","category-international","category-nationwide","tag-49"],"yoast_head":"\n