By Trevor Hunnicutt
BEIJING (Reuters) – Top U.S. and Chinese officials will wrap up talks in Beijing after a third day of meetings on Thursday that were intended to ease simmering tensions between the two superpowers ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and their teams gathered behind closed doors at a lush resort on the outskirts of the Chinese capital. On the agenda were their contrasting views over the Middle East and Ukraine, Chinese territorial claims from Taiwan to the South China Sea and trade.
In lengthy meetings on Wednesday, the pair discussed the prospect of fresh talks soon between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping as well as possible communications between theatre-level military commands – a long-sought demand from Washington.
“The key to the smooth development of China-U.S. interaction lies in treating each other as equals,” Wang told Sullivan, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
“The two sides held candid, substantive, and constructive discussions on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues,” the White House said.
In the final months of his presidency, Biden has pushed direct diplomacy to influence Xi and keep those tensions at bay; U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate in November’s election, would likely pursue a similar strategy.
However, many analysts aligned with former President and current Republican candidate Donald Trump see that approach as too soft in the face of China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy.
The U.S. also wants China to take more action at home to prevent the development of chemicals that can be made into fentanyl, the leading cause of U.S. drug overdoses, and reach an understanding about safety standards for artificial intelligence.
Beijing plans to express its disapproval over U.S. tariffs on a range of manufactured goods and export controls targeting Chinese chip makers, and talk about its claims of sovereignty over democratically ruled Taiwan.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Greg Torode and Lincoln Feast.)
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