Exclusive | China, US eye further talks with Yang Jiechi set to meet Jake Sullivan
- Top Chinese diplomat Yang to hold talks with US national security adviser in Switzerland, sources say
- They aim to rebuild communication channels and implement consensus reached between presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden, one source says
China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi will hold talks with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Switzerland this week, according to sources familiar with details of the meeting.
“It can be seen as a meeting in which the two sides attempt to rebuild communication channels and implement the consensus reached between the two leaders,” a person familiar with the arrangements said.
A second source said Yang was to leave China on Tuesday, and one item on the agenda was the possibility of a summit between Xi and Biden.
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Tai said she would seek a meeting with Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He in the coming days to review the phase one deal.
In their last phone call in September, Biden and Xi talked about managing the rising competition between their countries. The White House said the call was aimed at preventing competition between the two nations creating an unintended conflict, while Xi said the world would suffer from confrontation between China and the US.
Arranging an in-person summit between Xi and Biden to try to resolve some of the two rivals’ thorniest issues has been on the agenda for months in meetings between their officials. Beijing has previously said it was open to more dialogue, but that a leaders summit was unlikely before the end of the year.
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In a surprise development, Meng returned to China last month after reaching a deal with US prosecutors that effectively resolved a US fraud case that had kept her in legal limbo in Vancouver for nearly three years.
Both China and the US confirmed that Xi had raised Meng’s case in the phone call, with Beijing saying Xi demanded that the US resolve it.
But in recent days, China and the US have been engaged in a row over Taiwan.
On Monday, Washington accused Beijing of undermining regional peace and stability by sending 148 military aircraft into the island’s air defence identification zone in the previous four days.
Beijing accused Washington of stoking regional tensions with arms sales to Taiwan, and said it was determined to protect its territorial integrity.
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Lu Xiang, a research fellow in US studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said recent developments, including the release of Meng, showed the two nations were stepping towards rebuilding trust after a prolonged period of turbulence.
“Following more than eight months of review [of its China policy], the Biden administration has probably come to an understanding of the ceiling of its strength. Time has come for the two nations to resolve some issues and prevent the relations from deteriorating further,” Lu said.
Lu said that some of the top concerns likely to be raised during Yang’s meeting with Sullivan included the Biden administration’s characterisation of US-China rivalry as a contest between democracy and autocracy and the tech and supply chain decoupling policy carried over from the Trump era.
