In addition to Taiwan and tariffs, when US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meet this week, they will discuss counternarcotics, better communication between the nations’ militaries and improved artificial intelligence security, a senior White House official said Monday.
The meetings, scheduled to run from Tuesday to Thursday in Beijing, are to build on the talks that began at last year’s summit in California between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Mr. Sullivan’s trip to China was discussed by the two leaders last November. A lot of planning and scheduling went into it since then, and they’re now executing it in Beijing,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
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Sullivan’s meeting, his fifth with Wang, will be the first trip by a US national security adviser to Beijing since 2016, when Susan Rice of the Barack Obama administration travelled there.
Additionally, Sullivan is expected to raise US concerns regarding security in the Indo-Pacific region, China’s support for Russia’s defence industrial base as well as other international hotspots, including North Korea, the Middle East and Myanmar, a senior US official said last week.
On Sunday, China’s Foreign Ministry said that Beijing regarded Sullivan’s trip as “an important step for the two sides to implement the common understandings the two presidents had at their San Francisco meeting,” but that Wang would take the opportunity to raise “serious concerns” about Taiwan.
“The US side must abide by the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, and honour its commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence’,” the ministry said in a statement.
According to Kirby, the US intends to tackle the “rising tensions in the South China Sea”, where China and the Philippines are embroiled in territorial disputes.
On Monday, Manila criticised Beijing for “repeated aggressive, unprofessional and illegal” actions in the waterway, accusing Chinese aircraft of conducting unsafe manoeuvres against a civilian aircraft patrolling over the Scarborough Shoal and Subi Reef.
Kirby said that Sullivan would also discuss “sea tensions across the Taiwan Strait and a range of other issues, including unfair economic practises”.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it intended to communicate to Sullivan that “countries outside the region should not do things that provoke confrontation or increase tensions”.
“China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the region have sufficient historical and legal basis, and ... countries in the region have full confidence, wisdom and capability to properly handle the issue,” the statement added.
More from South China Morning Post:
- China to target security and trade in talks with US adviser Jake Sullivan
- US national security adviser to meet Wang Yi in China in first for Biden administration
- US assures Manila of support after PLA vessel’s ‘deliberate collision’ in South China Sea
- China’s ‘coercive behaviour’ scrutinised at US-Australia talks as global tensions cited
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