Biden aide urges Bejing to press Iran over Houthi attacks. China warns US over Taiwan independence
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has pressured Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during talks in Thailand to use China’s influence over Iran to ease tensions in the Middle East. The officials also agreed to work on arranging a phone call between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The meetings Friday and Saturday in Bangkok, which followed the presidents’ November talks in California, came after a ruling party candidate, opposed by Beijing, won the recent presidential election in Taiwan and U.S. and Chinese military officials had resumed once frozen dialogue. They unfolded as attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen continued to threaten global shipping in the Red Sea.
A senior US official said Sullivan cited China’s extensive economic influence over Iran and emphasized the destabilizing effect of the Houthi attacks on international trade. The official noted that China has publicly called for lower tensions, but said it was too early to say whether Beijing was using its diplomatic muscle to pressure Tehran on the issue. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations between Sullivan and Wang and spoke on condition of anonymity.
China’s Foreign Ministry said Wang said Washington should stick to its pledge not to support Taiwan’s independence. Wang said Taiwan’s election, won by Lai Ching-te, the current vice president, did not change China’s position that the island is part of China and that the biggest challenge in US-China relations was the issue of is “Taiwan independence,” according to Wang. according to a statement from the ministry.
Biden has said he does not support independence, but US law requires a credible defense for Taiwan and for the US to treat all threats against the island as matters of “grave importance.”
The US official said it was not clear when the next Biden-Xi call would take place, but that officials hoped it would take place in the coming months.
Wang and Sullivan previously met on the Mediterranean island of Malta and in Vienna last year before the Biden-Xi meeting in California.
In November, both sides presented modest agreements to combat illegal fentanyl and restore military communications, which prevented the relationship from further deteriorating. The US-China Counternarcotics Working Group will hold its first meeting on Tuesday. U.S. officials say fentanyl and its precursors are largely manufactured in China.
China claims Taiwan’s self-rule as its own territory and has shown its displeasure at political activities in Taiwan in recent years by sending military aircraft and ships. Earlier Saturday, Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said China had sent more than 30 warplanes and a group of naval vessels to the island over a 24-hour period, including 13 warplanes that crossed the centerline of the Taiwan Strait – an unofficial border considered a buffer between its territory and the mainland.
Wang also said that China and the US should use the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries this year as an opportunity to reflect on past experiences and treat each other as equals, instead of a condescending attitude to assume.
The countries should “commit to mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation, thus building a proper way for China-US interaction,” Wang said in the statement.
Taiwan has said six Chinese balloons flew over the island or through the airspace just north of it, days after the self-governing island held its election. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party largely campaigned for self-determination, social justice and a rejection of Chinese threats.
In addition to issues between the two countries, Sullivan and Wang also discussed Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Middle East, North Korea, the South China Sea and Myanmar, the White House said. Sullivan and Wang discussed progress toward holding a dialogue this spring between U.S. and Chinese officials on artificial intelligence.
Sullivan emphasized that while Washington and Beijing compete with each other, both sides “must avoid drawing the country into conflict or confrontation,” according to a White House summary of the meeting.
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Leung reported from Hong Kong and Miller from Washington.