Photo: AFP/Ng Han Guan
Eurasia
27/08/2024 17:15
Before heading into talks with Sullivan at a hotel at the Yanqi Lake scenic area in the northern suburbs of Beijing on Tuesday, Wang touched on tensions in the ties between the two countries, South China Morning Post reported.
“China-US relations are of vital importance to the world. In the past few years, the relationship between the two countries has been full of twists and turns,” Wang said.
“The experience is worth summarising and the lessons need to be learned. The key is to keep the overall direction of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.”
Wang said he sought “in-depth communication” with Sullivan over the next two days.
“I hope that our communication this time will be strategic and substantive as always, and to be constructive at the same time, to … truly achieve stable, healthy and sustainable development.”
Sullivan said he looked forward to discussing a wide range of issues, including those the two nations agree on and the differences that needed to be managed “effectively and substantively”.
“President Biden has been clear in his conversations with President Xi that he is committed to managing this important relationship responsibly. And the outcomes of the Woodside summit and the works we have done since then demonstrate that,” Sullivan said, referring to a meeting between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in California in November.
Sullivan said the countries must ensure that their competition did not veer into conflict “and that we find ways to work together where our interests align”.
“And all of that requires the kind of strategic and substantive and constructive dialogues that Director Wang was just referring to, and to which we remain committed,” Sullivan said, adding that he would hold discussions with Wang in the “afternoon, in the evening and tomorrow”.
His visit to China is the first by a White House national security adviser in eight years and is widely seen as laying the groundwork for another summit between Biden and Xi, who agreed in San Francisco in November to manage tensions between the two rival nations through a range of working groups.
There has been speculation Biden could visit China before he steps down in January. He remains the only US president in decades not to visit China during his term.
