BEIJING: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Tuesday he was hoping for “substantive” and “constructive” talks with top White House official Jake Sullivan as the two met in Beijing.
“I hope as always the communication will be not only strategic, but also substantive and at the same time very constructive,” Wang said.
Wang added that he wanted the two sides to “help China-US relations move forward toward the San Francisco vision,” referring to a framework hashed out by Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping during talks in the US city last year.
Wang also holds the more senior title of the director of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office.
It’s unusual to hold both positions. Wang had initially stepped down as foreign minister, but he returned about seven months later, in July 2023, after his successor was removed for reasons that have not been made public.
Sullivan, meanwhile, said he was “looking forward” to the talks on Tuesday evening and Wednesday.
“We’ll delve into a wide range of issues, including issues on which we agree and those issues... where there are still differences that we need to manage effectively and substantively,” he said.
“It will be, I think, a very productive round of conversations,” he added.
The Biden administration has taken a tough line on China, viewing it as a strategic competitor, restricting the access of its companies to advanced technology and confronting the rising power as it seeks to exert influence over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Already frosty relations went into a deep freeze after then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a senior US lawmaker, visited Taiwan in August 2022. Hopes of restoring ties were dashed the following February when a suspected Chinese spy balloon drifted across the United States before being shot down by the US military.
At a meeting between Sullivan and Wang in Vienna in May 2023, the two countries launched a delicate process of putting relations back on track. Since than, they have met two more times in a third country, Malta and Thailand. This week will mark their first talks in Beijing.
China’s Foreign Ministry said this week that relations with the US remain at “a critical juncture.” It noted that the two sides are talking on climate and other issues, but it accused the US of continuing to constrain and suppress China.
