On Thursday, Top diplomats from China and the US met to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cross-strait issues between China and Taiwan.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Vienna this week, the White House said Thursday, seeking to maintain communication amid soaring tensions, including over Taiwan.
Both sides described the meeting in carefully choreographed statements as “candid, substantive and constructive,” mirroring one another’s language in the tentative, high-level rapprochement.
Topics discussed included the war in Ukraine and “cross-Strait issues,” according to the White House, referring to Taiwan, which has recently been the target of increasingly heated rhetoric from Beijing.
Wang “comprehensively expounded upon China’s solemn position” on Taiwan, Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua said, adding the two diplomats “agreed to continue to make good use of this strategic channel for communication.”
Washington and Beijing’s historically strained relationship has tightened further recently over commercial, political, and military influence, particularly in the Pacific region.
The United States has sought leverage against an increasingly assertive China there through its Quad partnership with India, Japan, and Australia.
The group denies hostile intentions and stresses that they are not a military alliance, but China has described the grouping as an attempt to encircle it.
Chinese diplomats have kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism against the administration of US President Joe Biden, and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping made a rare direct rebuke of Washington in March, accusing “Western countries led by the United States” of trying to undermine his country.
The meeting in Vienna is likely to reignite speculation about a potential meeting between Biden and Xi.
Asked about the issue Wednesday, Biden said there had been progress.
China claims Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to bring the island under its control one day, by force if necessary, and bristles at any official contact between Taipei and foreign governments.
Miroslava Salazar with AFP.
