WASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet soon, maintaining the high-level contacts that were revived after the countries\u2019 presidents met in California.<\/p>\n
The Sullivan-Wang session will take place in coming days in Thailand, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing said in a statement Friday. Wang will sign an agreement waiving visa requirements for travelers during a visit to Thailand from Friday to Monday, the ministry said separately.<\/p>\n
The White House said Wang and Sullivan would meet in Bangkok \u201con Jan. 26-27.\u201d <\/p>\n
The plans for a Sullivan-Wang meeting underscore efforts by the U.S. and China to improve ties after they soured last year. The U.S. and China each claimed some breakthroughs \u2014 including on combating fentanyl trafficking and restoring military-to-military communications \u2014 during the November meeting between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. <\/p>\n
That meeting was followed by a flurry of diplomatic exchanges between Washington and Beijing highlighted by defense officials from the two sides resuming policy coordination talks at the Pentagon earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Senior Chinese diplomat Liu Jianchao later traveled to the U.S., meeting U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer and separately with Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio and with former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Timothy Geithner.<\/p>\n
Underscoring the two nations\u2019 desire for improved ties, China\u2019s responded to the election of the U.S.-friendly candidate Lai Ching-te in Taiwan\u2019s presidential election on Jan. 13 in a relatively muted manner. <\/p>\n
Days before the vote, Xi said China wants to work with the U.S. to improve ties, and afterward Beijing refrained from any big display of military might around the island that Beijing has pledged to someday control. China\u2019s biggest response to the Taiwan election was peeling off one of Taiwan\u2019s few remaining allies, Nauru.<\/p>\n
But tensions persist over issues including tariffs and other trade restrictions, the future of Taiwan and competing claims by China and U.S. partners in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n
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