Jake Sullivan, White House National Security Adviser, speaks during an interview at an Economic Club of Washington event in Washington, DC, on Thursday, April 14, 2022.
Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images
WASHINGTON — National security adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi on Monday to discuss a number of security challenges facing the countries’ bilateral relationship, including Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea’s series of ballistic missile tests.
A senior administration official described the talks, which took place in Luxembourg, as “open, in-depth, substantive and productive”.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the meeting lasted nearly five hours and followed a phone conversation between Sullivan and Yang in May. The two last met in person on March 14 in Rome for talks that were later described as “intense” and lasted at least seven hours.
The meeting comes as the US is pressuring the world’s second largest economy not to help Moscow relax global sanctions over the Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine. In the weeks since Russia’s invasion of its former Soviet neighbor, Washington and its allies have imposed rounds of coordinated sanctions that have taken Russia past Iran and North Korea as the world’s most sanctioned country.
Sullivan also expressed concern about China’s recent veto of a US resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would have imposed new sanctions on North Korea following a string of recent ballistic missile tests.
“Yeah [Sullivan] made very clear that this is an area where we believe the United States and China should be able to work together,” the official said.
The meeting came days after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. During the meeting, Austin warned Beijing about its aggressive approach towards Taiwan.
Last month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken described China as the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order” even as the world grapples with Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“China is the only country that both has the intention to transform the international order and increasingly has the economic, diplomatic, military and technological might to do so,” Blinken said in a May 26 speech at George Washington University.
“Beijing’s vision would take us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years,” Blinken said.
The official said that during the meeting, both Washington and Beijing agreed to future talks but declined to reveal specific details.