National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with a top Chinese diplomat in Malta over the weekend as part of the United States’ efforts to ease strained ties with Beijing.
Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Li in Malta on Saturday and Sunday. Sullivan’s office said the meeting was part of ongoing efforts to keep lines of communication open.
The two sides – who met earlier this year in Vienna – are said to have had a “frank, meaningful and constructive” discussion, building on President Biden’s talks with President Xi Jinping in Bali, Indonesia, last November.
FILE: U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan speaks to the press in front of U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yun Suk-yeol at the Camp David Trilateral Summit in Camp David, Maryland on August 18, 2023. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Sullivan and Wang discussed key issues in the US-China bilateral relationship, global and regional security issues, Russia’s war against Ukraine and the Taiwan Strait, among others.
There were also “limited” early indications that severed military communications between the two sides might begin to be restored, a senior Biden administration official said.
Chinese officials have not commented on the prospect of military communication, which was suspended after an August 2022 visit by former US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan that angered China.
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Sullivan’s meeting with Wang was the latest in a series of high-level talks between US and Chinese officials that come amid a series of upheavals at the highest levels of the Chinese government, including the disappearance of Defense Minister Li Shangfu, and turmoil in the country’s economy. . have caused consternation in foreign capitals.
FILE: China’s Central Foreign Affairs Bureau Director Wang Yi attends a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister in Moscow on February 22, 2023. (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
The United States told China it was ready to work together to fight drugs, artificial intelligence and climate change, even as it raised concerns about China’s unspecified support for Russia and Beijing recently sending fighter jets to the sensitive middle line of the Taiwan Strait, in the USA. said an official.
Wang warned the United States that the Taiwan issue is the “first insurmountable red line of Sino-US relations,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry statement. China claims the self-governing island as its own territory.
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Biden this month expressed disappointment that Xi skipped the Group of 20 leaders’ summit in India, but said he would “see him.” The next possible opportunity for Biden to talk with Xi is an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November, where US aides have for months hoped to hold such a meeting.
