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Hawaii talks a chance for Mike Pompeo and Yang Jiechi to ‘draw red lines in the sand’
- Meeting of top diplomats on Wednesday comes as relations between Beijing and Washington are at their lowest point in decades
- Observers are not optimistic there will be any real breakthroughs, but say it could help ‘avoid a sharp turn for the worse’
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With relations between Beijing and Washington at their lowest ebb in decades, all eyes are on a meeting of top diplomats in Hawaii that observers say will be a chance to “draw red lines in the sand”.
There is little doubt that the talks between China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday – their first meeting since August – are aimed at de-escalating tensions ahead of the US presidential election. But few details have been given, including why it was hastily arranged in the middle of a global health crisis.
Neither side has publicly confirmed the face-to-face meeting at Hickam Air Force Base will even take place, while observers and people familiar with the arrangements have given contradictory versions of which side initiated the rare face-to-face talks amid the pandemic.
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Under the watch of Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump, relations have taken a precipitous slide – some say towards a new cold war – since the coronavirus was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year.
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The two sides have engaged in a blame game over the deadly virus, but they have also sparred over other issues – Beijing’s plan to impose a controversial national security law in Hong Kong, the South China Sea, Taiwan and Xinjiang, the protracted trade war and technology.
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