CHARLOTTE, N.C (TNS) — U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed scheduling a call between the two countries’ leaders for sometime this spring, a senior US official said.
Sullivan and Wang concluded two days of talks in Bangkok on Saturday, the latest effort to maintain the high-level contacts that were revived after Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in California in November.
The two advisers agreed to pursue additional channels of communication, not just at the Cabinet level but also a Biden-Xi call in the coming months, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the discussions. Also, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit China again this year, the official said.
The latest meeting underscores efforts by the U.S. and China to improve ties after they soured last year. Both sides claimed some breakthroughs — including on combating fentanyl trafficking and restoring military-to-military communications — during last year’s meeting by the two presidents.
Defense officials from the two sides resumed policy coordination talks at the Pentagon this month.
During the talks with Wang, Sullivan urged China to use its economic leverage over Iran to curb attacks on commercial shipping by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, the official said. China should have an economic interest in maintaining open global trade routes, according to the official.
Official readouts from both sides didn’t mention the Houthi issue, while reiterating known policy stances.
Wang emphasized that the Taiwan issue is China’s internal affair and that the greatest risk to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is “Taiwan independence,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The two sides agreed to further discuss the boundaries between national security and economic activities.
Sullivan underscored the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, the White House said in its readout. They also discussed next steps toward holding a U.S.-China dialogue on artificial intelligence in the spring and a bilateral working group on counternarcotics starting its work on Jan. 30.
The two sides also discussed the Middle East, Ukraine, the Korean peninsula, and the South China Sea.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan talks to reporters during the daily news conference in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on July 11, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi discussed scheduling a call between the two countries’ leaders for sometime in the spring of 2024, a senior US official said.
