by the associated press: White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Wang Yi during talks in Vienna this week that the Biden administration is “trying to move forward” US shoots down Chinese spy balloon spread across the continental United States, according to a senior Biden administration official.
The meeting was not publicized by Washington or Beijing ahead of high-level talks on Wednesday and Thursday in the Austrian capital. The White House described the extensive discussion, in which the two leaders spent more than eight hours together, as “frank” and “constructive”.
The administration official, who spoke to reporters on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting, said both sides agreed the February incident was “unfortunate” and would now like to resume “standard, normal channels of communication.” Looking to install”.
The talks are the latest in a series of small signs that tensions between the world’s two biggest economies may be easing.
political and military The rivalry between China and the US has intensified, US officials and analysts are concerned that a minor confrontation could spiral into greater hostilities because of a lack of reliable crisis communication. They allow the Cold War to end without a nuclear exchange, citing the ability to communicate with the former Soviet Union.
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The White House said in a statement that the meeting was part of “ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and manage competition responsibly”, and that Sullivan and Wang discussed US-China relations, Ukraine, Taiwan, Russia, and China. Discussed key issues in the ongoing offensive. even more.
The meeting took place at a luxury hotel along Vienna’s historic Ringstrasse, according to an Austrian official familiar with the matter. The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that planning for the meeting was closely monitored and that Austrian officials were given only a few days’ advance notice that Vienna would be held. was selected for talks.
According to the official Xinhua news agency, Chinese officials viewed the discussions as “substantive” and said the two sides would “continue to make good use of this channel of strategic communication”.
According to the administration official, Sullivan reiterated the White House’s concerns about a lack of “constructive engagement” by Beijing in using its influence to pressure Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine and illegal trade with China. called for more to be done to curb the movement of drugs. The US is particularly pressing China to stop production of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl.
Sullivan also took up the cases of three American citizens imprisoned in China – Mark Swidan, Kai Li and David Lin. All three have been designated as “wrongful detainees” by the State Department’s Office of the Special Presidential Envoy on Hostage Affairs.
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Tensions between the countries escalated last year following a visit by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to democratically-ruled Taiwan. That visit, the first by a sitting House speaker since Newt Gingrich in 1997, led China, which claims the island as its territory, to begin military exercises around Taiwan.
US-China relations further strained earlier this year after the US shot down a Chinese spy balloon that had flown over the United States.
Beijing was also angered by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s stop in the US last month, which included an encounter with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. The speaker hosted the Taiwanese leader at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California.
But there are indications that both sides are getting diplomatic communication back on track.
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping hold talks in Bali, Indonesia, in November. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to travel to China in February, but the trip was postponed after the spy balloon incident. Blinken and Wang, China’s top diplomat, met later in February on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference after the US shot down the balloon.
The White House has expressed interest in rescheduling Blinken’s visit. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier this week that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo could also visit Beijing at some point.
The talks between Sullivan and Wang were their first face-to-face meeting since last year Wang was promoted to the Communist Party’s Politburo, the top policy-making body made up of the party’s 24 most senior officials.
Wang served as foreign minister for nearly 10 years and was the only diplomat to be promoted to the Politburo.
US Ambassador Nicholas Burns and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang also met in Beijing this week, and Biden’s special envoy for climate, John Kerry, held a call last month with his counterpart, Xie Zhenhua.
Burns said earlier this month during a virtual forum hosted by the Stimson Center that communication is improving.
“Yes, we’ve had instances when we wanted to have some high-level talks when that just wasn’t possible,” Burns said. “But I have to say, in recent weeks, over the last month or so, there has been frequent communication between me and senior officials at the State Department, my colleagues in the US mission, and their counterparts at the State Department.”