High-level meeting between the US and China

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The White House announced on Thursday that US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan had met with China’s top foreign policy maker Wang Yi in Vienna. The two met in the Austrian capital on Wednesday and Thursday and held “open, factual and constructive talks”. The US side said it was ready to put the recent affair over allegations of espionage against Beijing behind it.

Relations between the US and China are generally tense over a slew of issues. The Biden administration sees China as the biggest geopolitical challenge and takes a tough stance on Beijing. In early February, a dispute over alleged Chinese espionage operations further strained the relationship.

According to the White House, talks in Vienna included bilateral relations, global and regional security issues and Russia’s war against Ukraine. It is part of the ongoing effort to maintain open communication channels and compete responsibly. Both parties agreed to maintain this important strategic communication channel.

A senior US official said the two spent more than eight hours together over the two days. It was the first such meeting after Sullivan and China’s then top foreign policy chief Yang Jiechi met in Luxembourg in June 2022.

Sullivan again made it clear that while both countries are in competition with each other, the US does not want conflict and is willing to work with China on certain bilateral and global issues. “We will not change the other person’s opinion,” said the US government official. But it’s part of diplomacy to explain your point of view.

The allegations of espionage against Beijing had recently further alienated the two countries: the US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the US coast. The United States accused China of using it to spy on military facilities. Beijing, on the other hand, spoke of a civilian research balloon that had gone off course and complained that the Americans had completely overreacted. The US spoke of a large international espionage program by China, which Beijing also rejected.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has canceled an upcoming visit to China at the last minute because of the affair. Blinken met Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich security conference later in February. However, the meeting did not provide real relaxation – and concrete plans to catch up on Blinken’s trip to Beijing are not yet known. Blinken always emphasizes that he wants to travel to China as soon as the circumstances are right.

In recent months, however, there has been little exchange between the two parties. Biden defended the balloon launch while trying to de-escalate it. China, however, responded coolly to offers of talks from Washington.

The US government representative now said in view of the latest espionage dispute that both sides had acknowledged that the “regrettable incident” had led to a rift in mutual exchanges. Sullivan again made the US position clear. But we’re ready to “look ahead” now and focus on how both sides can address other ongoing issues and find a productive way to work together.

With a view to a possible visit by Blinken to Beijing, she said that the talk in Vienna was not about concrete agreements. However, she assumes there will be commitments in both directions in the coming months. As for the prospects of a possible phone call between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, she said nothing was to be said about that either.

The first high-level meeting between the US and China in a long time also coincides with preparations by the Americans and their partners for the upcoming G7 summit in Japan. A meeting of the heads of state and government of the seven major economic powers is scheduled for next week in Hiroshima. China is not part of the group, but is likely to play an important role in the talks there.

Without explicitly mentioning China, many of the summit’s topics indirectly concern the politically and economically powerful country. Beijing made a front against the G7 beforehand: Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in Beijing on Thursday that the G7 talked about international order but meant Western standards. It is the rules “of a small clique that put the United States first”.

(SDA)

Source: Blick