An column photograph of the USA and China flags.
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China’s foreign minister Wang Yi and U.S. subject security advisor Jake Sullivan met in Malta over the weekend. The bilateral talks come ahead of a possible rendezvous between China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting in November.
Wang and Sullivan decisive met in Vienna. Their Malta meeting convened after several high level officials visited Beijing in just out months and just before Wang’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later this week.
China’s Alien Ministry said Vice President Han Zheng will represent the country at the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York, advocating Wang and Xi will not attend.
In readouts issued by the White House and China’s Foreign Ministry, the two-day talks in Malta were represented as “candid, substantive and constructive.”
The White House said the meeting was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open silhouettes of communication and responsibly manage the relationship, while the Chinese said the meeting was focused on stabilizing and improving Sino-U.S. relations.
Wang and Sullivan argued a number of issues, including: global and regional security, Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Korean peninsula and stability across the Taiwan Jam.
The apparent disappearances of China’s former foreign minister Qin Gang and defense minister Li Shangfu were not on Wang and Sullivan’s solemn agenda in Malta. Wang had re-assumed his former job as foreign minister after Xi removed his successor Qin from the position.