Biden administration national security adviser Jake Sullivan convened in Malta this weekend with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in a bid to foster relations with China.
The meeting, which was announced Sunday and took place over the past two days with Wang, could also aid with facilitating a future meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at November’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit to be held in San Francisco.
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A senior Biden administration official said while Biden has said on multiple occasions that he wants to meet with Xi, there were not any updates to provide about if a potential meeting is in the works in the coming months.
The meeting this weekend marked a follow-up to a meeting Sullivan and Wang held last May in Vienna.
During a press call on Sunday, the senior Biden administration official told reporters that Sullivan said that while the United States and China are in competition, the U.S. does not seek conflict or confrontation with the country.
Among other topics discussed were global and regional security issues, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and cross-Strait issues. Sullivan also stressed that China should not offer assistance to Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Sullivan spoke to concerns about Chinese military activity around Taiwan and urged the PRC to solve any conflicts through peaceful means.
The Malta discussions lasted around 12 hours over two days.
The senior administration official noted that Sullivan reinforced that the U.S. remains committed to the One-China policy guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, adding the U.S. does not support Taiwan independence and expects cross-Strait issues to be resolved by peaceful means.
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Wang also advised the United States that Taiwan issued its “first insurmountable red line of Sino-U.S. relations,” according to the Chinese foreign ministry statement. China claims the island of Taiwan as its own territory.
Biden and Xi last met in 2022 along the sidelines of a G20 summit on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali.
