BEIJING: US President Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan continued talks with top Chinese officials in Beijing on Wednesday over the Middle East and Ukraine and Chinese territorial claims from Taiwan.
Sullivan’s second day of meetings with top Chinese officials in Beijing on August 28, aimed at lessoning tensions between the two superpowers ahead of the November 5 US election.
Sullivan, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and others are holding talks from Aug 27 to 29 as the two world powers are at odds over the Middle East and Ukraine, Chinese territorial claims from Taiwan to the South China Sea and trade.
“Over the past few years, bilateral relations have gone through twists and turns,” Wang told reporters on August 27.
“We’ll delve into a wide range of issues, including issues on which we agree and those issues on where there are still differences that we need to manage effectively and substantively,” Sullivan said.
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In the final months of his presidency, Biden has used direct diplomacy to influence Chinese President Xi Jinping and keep those tensions at bay. US Vice-President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate in November’s election, would also likely to follow a similar strategy.
However many experts aligned with Republican former president Donald Trump see that policy as too soft, against Beijing’s foreign policy.
Sullivan wants to expand military-to-military negotiations down to the theatre command level, a step that the US hopes could stop conflict in specific areas such as the Taiwan Strait.
The US also wants China to take more action to prevent the development of chemicals that can be made into fentanyl, the main cause of US drug overdoses, and reach an understanding regarding safety standards for artificial intelligence.
Beijing is expected to express its disapproval over US tariffs on a range of manufactured products and export controls targeting Chinese chipmakers.
