China’s Wang to Visit Washington This Week Amid Middle East Tensions
(Bloomberg) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will visit Washington for high-level meetings, as the US and China continue a series of diplomatic engagements intended to manage tensions even as war in the Middle East shows the limits of potential cooperation.
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Wang will be in Washington Thursday to Saturday and meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, senior Biden administration officials said on a call with reporters on Monday.
The US side is planning to raise the subject of the war, which began with the invasion of Israel by Hamas. The group, designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union, seized more than 200 hostages. Washington has strongly supported Israel, while China has called for a cease-fire. President Joe Biden said Monday that “we should have those hostages released, and then we can talk” about a cease-fire.
China confirmed Wang’s trip, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning saying Tuesday at a regular briefing in Beijing that he’d meet high-level officials to discuss “international issues of shared interest.”
Wang’s visit will be the first by China’s top foreign policy official since March 2021. Back then, Yang Jiechi and Blinken bickered in Alaska over human rights, trade and international alliances. The two nations have been trying to stabilize their relationship recently, with the US sending a string of high-level officials to Beijing.
On Tuesday, US Treasury staff and counterparts from China held the first meeting of a new working group dedicated to discussing economic topics. China and the US agreed to establish two groups dedicated to holding regular, staff level sit-downs following Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit to China in July.
A second working group will meet Wednesday evening Washington time to discuss financial topics.
The crisis in Gaza has become a new point of division between Beijing and Washington. Last week, the US’s top diplomat in China, Nicholas Burns, called on China to denounce terrorism by Hamas.
On Monday, China again acknowledged that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas while also calling on it to consider civilians. “Every country has the right to self-defense but should abide by international humanitarian law and protect civilians,” Wang told his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in a telephone call.
Wang told Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki in a separate call the same day that China “deeply sympathizes with the difficult situation of the Palestinian side, especially the people of Gaza.”
Read: China Repeats Its View That Israel Must Protect Civilians
During the meetings in Washington, US officials will also engage Wang over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and North Korea’s weapons program, the senior Biden administration officials said.
They said the meeting was part of efforts to manage US-China relations responsibly and didn’t outline any clear deliverables from the visit. They also declined to say whether it would lay the groundwork for a meeting between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping at a summit in San Francisco next month, adding only that Biden has said he hopes to see Xi in the near future.
The Biden team also wants to bring up what it called China’s dangerous and destabilizing activities in the South China Sea, the officials added, particularly around the Second Thomas Shoal, where a Chinese coast guard ship collided with a Philippines-contracted resupply boat early Sunday.
More: China’s Stance on Hamas Key Point of Division, US Envoy Says
Wang’s visit is the somewhat delayed result of an invitation issued to then-Foreign Minister Qin Gang in June, when Blinken traveled to Beijing as the most senior US official to visit the Chinese capital in five years.
Qin, China’s former ambassador to Washington, was later ousted after just seven months in his new role, one of several senior officials to vanish from public view without explanation. Wang returned to that role in addition to his higher-ranking position as director of the Communist Party’s foreign affairs body.
Blinken last spoke with Wang on Oct. 14 when the top US diplomat was in Saudi Arabia on a whirlwind trip around the Middle East. At a time when US officials were worried about Iran urging others to strike Israel, Blinken urged Wang to use Chinese influence in the region to try and keep things under control.
Also: Israel Latest: Macron Visits Israel as Hostage Talks Stepped Up
--With assistance from Colum Murphy, Jing Li and Philip Glamann.
(Updates with China confirming Wang Yi to visit and more context.)
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