WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Luxembourg on Monday, with Sullivan urging that Washington and Beijing keep lines of communication open to manage competition, the White House said.
The meeting came as relations between China and the United States have been tense in recent months, with the world’s two largest economies clashing over everything from Taiwan and China’s human rights record to its military activity in the South China Sea.
“This meeting, which followed their May 18 phone call, included candid, substantive, and productive discussion of a number of regional and global security issues, as well as key issues in U.S.-China relations,” the White House said in a statement.
U.S. President Joe Biden said last month the United States would get involved militarily should China attack Taiwan, although the administration has since clarified that U.S. policy on the issue has not changed.
China claims self-ruled Taiwan as its own and has vowed to take it by force if necessary. Washington has had a long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity on whether it would defend Taiwan militarily.
Earlier this month, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Biden had asked his team to look at the option of lifting some tariffs on China that were put into place by former President Donald Trump, to combat the current high inflation.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; editing by Susan Heavey and Sandra Maler)
