Top China, U.S. officials meet in Malta talks ahead of possible Xi-Biden meeting

China’s overseas minister Wang Yi and U.S. nationwide safety advisor Jake Sullivan met in Malta over the weekend. The bilateral talks come ahead of a possible meeting between China’s President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders meeting in November.

Wang and Sullivan final met in Vienna. Their Malta meeting convened after a number of excessive stage officials visited Beijing in current months and simply earlier than Wang’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later this week.

China’s Foreign Ministry stated Vice President Han Zheng will represent the country on the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York, suggesting Wang and Xi is not going to attend.

In readouts issued by the White House and China’s Foreign Ministry, the two-day talks in Malta have been characterised as “candid, substantive and constructive.”

The White House stated the meeting was half of ongoing efforts to keep up open traces of communication and responsibly handle the connection, whereas the Chinese stated the meeting was targeted on stabilizing and bettering Sino-U.S. relations. 

Wang and Sullivan mentioned a quantity of points, together with: world and regional safety, Russia’s warfare in opposition to Ukraine, the Korean peninsula and stability throughout the Taiwan Strait.

The obvious disappearances of China’s former overseas minister Qin Gang and protection minister Li Shangfu weren’t on Wang and Sullivan’s official agenda in Malta. Wang had re-assumed his former job as overseas minister after Xi eliminated his successor Qin from the place.