US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday said that they were hoping for productive talks as they met in Beijing.
Washington allies Japan and the Philippines have blamed China for raising regional tensions, with Tokyo accusing Beijing of violating its airspace and Manila calling it the “biggest disruptor” of peace in Southeast Asia.
Sullivan said after he arrived in the Chinese capital yesterday afternoon that he looked forward to “a very productive round of conversations” with Wang.
Photo: AFP
“We’ll delve into a wide range of issues, including issues on which we agree and those issues ... where there are still differences that we need to manage effectively and substantively,” Sullivan said.
Wang told Sullivan that he was keen for “substantive” and “constructive” talks during the visit, the first to China by a US national security adviser since 2016.
Wang added that he wanted the two sides to “help China-US relations move forward toward the San Francisco vision,” referring to a framework hashed out by US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) during talks in the US city last year.
A US official ahead of the visit said that Sullivan would discuss the South China Sea with counterparts in Beijing, including Wang.
She did not indicate whether the US expected any breakthroughs on the trip.
“We are committed to making the investments, strengthening our alliances, and taking the common steps on tech and national security that we need to take,” the US official said, referring to sweeping restrictions on US technology transfers to China imposed under Biden.
“We are committed to managing this competition responsibly ... and preventing it from veering into conflict,” she added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
She said the US would press China on its mounting “military, diplomatic and economic pressure” on Taiwan. China has kept up its saber rattling since the inauguration this year of President William Lai (賴清德).
“These activities are destabilizing, risk escalation, and we’re going to continue to urge Beijing to engage in meaningful dialogue with Taipei,” the US official said.
Sullivan would also reiterate US concerns about China’s support for the expansion of Russia’s defense industry since its invasion of Ukraine. Beijing counters that, unlike the US, it does not give weapons directly to either side.
China has been eager to work with US national security advisers, seeing them as decisionmakers close to the US president who can negotiate away from the media spotlight that comes with the US secretary of state or other top leadership. The modern US-China relationship was launched when Henry Kissinger, then-national security adviser to then-US president Richard Nixon, secretly visited Beijing in 1971 to lay the groundwork for normalizing relations.
Sullivan and Wang have met five times over the past 18 months — in Washington, Vienna, Malta and Bangkok, as well as alongside Biden and Xi at the summit in California.
Those meetings between Wang and Sullivan were sometimes announced only after they concluded and the two had spent long hours together behind closed doors.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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