The US and China on Friday agreed to work toward setting up a meeting between the two countries’ leaders next month, after US President Joe Biden met Beijing’s top diplomat at the White House.
Biden has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to San Francisco next month for the APEC summit at a time of tense relations between the two powers. Xi has not yet confirmed he would attend.
After Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) held talks with Biden and other senior US officials in Washington, the White House said that both countries had agreed to keep up “high-level diplomacy” to try to smooth ties.
Photo: Reuters
The two sides “reaffirmed” that they were “working together towards a meeting between President Biden and President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November,” the White House said in a statement.
A senior administration official said the White House was leaving it to Beijing to confirm that Xi would come, but “we are making preparations for just such a meeting.”
An official readout of talks between Wang and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan released by Beijing confirmed “both sides agreed to make joint efforts to realize a meeting between the two heads of state.”
In a separate readout of his meeting with Biden, Wang was quoted as saying that his visit was aimed at “working to stop the decline in China-US relations, stabilize them, and bring them back to the track of sound and steady development.”
Biden told Wang that Washington and Beijing must “manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open lines of communication,” the White House said in a statement.
Wang has been on a two-day visit to Washington during which he also met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
After meeting with Blinken on Thursday, Wang acknowledged that differences would still come up, but said China would respond “calmly.”
Biden and Xi have had no contact since a meeting in Bali, Indonesia, in November last year. Relations have been tense for years between the world’s top two economies as they vie for influence in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, and as Beijing boosts cooperation with Russia in a bid to reduce US dominance.
A particular point of contention has been Taiwan.
“The biggest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is ‘Taiwan independence,’ and the biggest challenge to China-US relations is also ‘Taiwan independence,’ which must be resolutely opposed,” Wang said in the readout of his meeting with Sullivan.
In his meeting with Biden, he also stressed the centrality of the “one China” principle to US-China ties, according to the readout.
A senior US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, quoted Blinken as telling Wang that the US opposes any unilateral changes to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and that the US would work to maintain peace and stability in the Strait.
Additional reporting by staff writer
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat