Officials in China met with a senior US diplomat Saturday to protest American accusations that China’s recent actions have hindered diplomatic efforts to resolve disputes in the South China Sea, The Wall Street Journal reported. China’s Foreign Ministry met with the US deputy chief of mission in Beijing, Robert Wang, to convey “strong dissatisfaction” with a statement made by the US State Department Friday. In the statement, the US said that China’s decision to establish a military outpost on an island in the South China Sea threatened to elevate tensions in the region. Separately, Chinese state media criticized US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her visit to Africa. In a harshly worded commentary, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency claimed that a statement made by the secretary while in Senegal last Wednesday represented a thinly-veiled swipe at China and revealed that her trip “is aimed at least partly at discrediting China’s engagement with the continent.”