Agenda for US-China talks includes Taiwan, South China Sea, Russia and AI
Sullivan’s meeting, his fifth with Wang, will be the first trip by a US national security adviser to Beijing since 2016, when Susan Rice of the Barack Obama administration travelled there.
Additionally, Sullivan is expected to raise US concerns regarding security in the Indo-Pacific region, China’s support for Russia’s defence industrial base as well as other international hotspots, including North Korea, the Middle East and Myanmar, a senior US official said last week.
On Sunday, China’s Foreign Ministry said that Beijing regarded Sullivan’s trip as “an important step for the two sides to implement the common understandings the two presidents had at their San Francisco meeting,” but that Wang would take the opportunity to raise “serious concerns” about Taiwan.
“The US side must abide by the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiques, and honour its commitment of not supporting ‘Taiwan independence’,” the ministry said in a statement.
According to Kirby, the US intends to tackle the “rising tensions in the South China Sea”, where China and the Philippines are embroiled in territorial disputes.
On Monday, Manila criticised Beijing for “repeated aggressive, unprofessional and illegal” actions in the waterway, accusing Chinese aircraft of conducting unsafe manoeuvres against a civilian aircraft patrolling over the Scarborough Shoal and Subi Reef.
Kirby said that Sullivan would also discuss “sea tensions across the Taiwan Strait and a range of other issues, including unfair economic practises”.
China’s Foreign Ministry said it intended to communicate to Sullivan that “countries outside the region should not do things that provoke confrontation or increase tensions”.
“China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in the region have sufficient historical and legal basis, and … countries in the region have full confidence, wisdom and capability to properly handle the issue,” the statement added.