The White Home aide’s go to comes amid tensions between China and Japan and the Philippines over the South China Sea.
U.S. nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s prime diplomat Wang Yi as Beijing finds itself embroiled in a safety dispute with key U.S. allies.
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Chinese language army jets, together with army spy planes, invaded Japanese airspace on Monday.
Japan’s Chief Cupboard Secretary Yoshitsune Hayashi stated at a press convention on Tuesday that the airspace violation by army plane “not solely critically violated Japan’s sovereignty, but additionally threatened our safety.”
In the meantime, the Philippines’ protection secretary on Tuesday accused China of being the “largest disruptor” of peace in Southeast Asia, following a week-long standoff between ships from the 2 international locations close to a hot-button disputed shoal within the South China Sea.
Sullivan’s aircraft landed at Beijing Capital Airport simply earlier than 2pm (06:00 GMT). U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Chinese language International Ministry official Yang Tao greeted him on the tarmac.
Sullivan met Wang at a resort within the northern suburbs of the Chinese language capital, the place they shook palms in entrance of Chinese language and American flags.
In an interview with reporters, Wang Yi stated that China-U.S. relations are “important” and have skilled “twists and turns.”
“As all the time, I need the communication to be not solely strategic, however substantive and really constructive on the similar time,” he stated.
Earlier than heading into the closed-door assembly, Sullivan stated they’d focus on areas of consensus and disagreement “that require efficient and substantive administration.”
busy agenda
Sullivan’s journey is the Nationwide Safety Company’s first go to to China since 2016. Earlier than his journey, a U.S. official stated Sullivan would focus on the South China Sea difficulty with Beijing officers, together with Wang Yi.
“We’re dedicated to creating investments, strengthening our alliances and taking the joint steps we have to tackle expertise and nationwide safety,” the official stated, referring to President Joe Biden’s sweeping evaluation of U.S. expertise transfers to China. restrict.
“We’re dedicated to managing this sport responsibly… and stopping it from turning into battle,” she added on situation of anonymity.
Washington may even stress Beijing to exert growing “army, diplomatic and financial stress” on Taiwan. .
China has continued its present of drive since President Lai Ching-te took workplace this yr, along with his social gathering emphasizing Taiwan’s impartial id.
handle tensions
Sullivan will reiterate U.S. considerations about China’s assist for the growth of Russia’s protection trade since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Beijing counters that, not like america, it doesn’t immediately present weapons to both social gathering.
Trendy U.S.-China relations started with a secret go to to Beijing in 1971 by Henry Kissinger, then director of Richard Nixon’s Nationwide Safety Company, to put the groundwork for normalizing relations with the communist nation.
Sullivan and Wang have met 5 instances over the previous yr and a half in Washington, D.C., Vienna, Malta and Bangkok, and joined Biden and Chinese language President Xi Jinping at a November summit in California.
Conferences between Wang and Sullivan have been typically introduced solely after that they had concluded, with the 2 spending lengthy durations of time collectively behind closed doorways.
Sullivan’s go to comes simply months earlier than the US election in November.
