WASHINGTON: White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will meet with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in China next week to discuss issues ranging from Taiwan to US-China military talks and the US fentanyl crisis, a senior US administration official said on Friday (Aug 23).
In the Aug 27 to 29 talks in Beijing the two will also discuss China’s support for Russia’s defence industry, as well as the South China Sea, North Korea, the Middle East, Myanmar and artificial intelligence (AI), the official told reporters.
Sullivan’s trip comes ahead of the Nov 5 US presidential election that pits Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, the current vice president, against former president Donald Trump, in which US competition with China is a key foreign policy issue.
Both sides have sought to stabilise rocky ties in the past year since they sank to a historic low point after the US downed a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon.
Axios reported earlier that Sullivan and Wang are expected to lay the groundwork for a potential meeting with US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this year, to follow up on their California summit last November.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether such a meeting was being contemplated. Sullivan has held regular talks with Wang, aiming as the administration says, to responsibly manage competition between the superpowers.
The official noted that the two last met in January in Bangkok, where they discussed ways to advance outcomes from the California summit, including the resumption of military-to-military talks, counter-narcotics cooperation and the risks posed by AI.
The official said the visit should not be associated too closely with the election. “That’s not the point. We’ve tried to do these Wang Yi-Jake Sullivan touchpoints about once a quarter.”
