As the Biden administration looks to manage competition between the United States and China, the White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met on Monday with Yang Jiechi, Director of the Chinese Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission and China’s Communist Party Politburo Member to discuss the issue.
After the productive telephone discussion of a number of regional and global security issues in May, Sullivan and Jiechi met in Luxembourg for a four-and-a-half-hour meeting during which the US National Security Advisor underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to manage competition between our two countries.
The White House said that the talks focused on reducing risks as well as on managing the relationship in a healthy, responsible way though a range of other important issues – including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Taiwan, and North Korea’s malign activity- was also discussed.
Noting that the US has advanced a number of our key priorities, a senior Biden administration official said that it’s very important to be clear with China what these intentions are.
According to the official, Sullivan confirmed that Washington and Beijing should be able to work together on the issue of North Korea, but has voiced concern over China’s decision, to veto a resolution condemning North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches alongside Russia.
The Chinese official was also told that it’s important that Beijing releases wrongfully detained American citizens.
This is the second high-level meeting between both countries after last week’s meeting on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart.
The White House added later that, with regard to the potential meeting between US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping, they expect additional meetings to happen in the months ahead but confirmed no scheduled meeting.
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