By Riyaz ul Khaliq
ISTANBUL (AA) - China’s Vice President Han Zheng will meet US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in New York on Monday.
US State Department confirmed that Blinken will meet Han, who is in New York to represent China at the UN General Assembly.
This came after China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan held two-day talks in Malta until Sunday.
According to Beijing, the two sides had “candid, substantive and constructive strategic communication focusing on stabilizing and improving” relations between the two countries.
Wang told Sullivan that Taiwan was the “first insurmountable red line in Sino-US relations.”
“The United States must abide by the three Sino-US joint communiques and implement its commitment not to support ‘Taiwan independence’,” said a statement by China’s Foreign Ministry.
“China's development has strong endogenous driving force and follows inevitable historical logic. It cannot be stopped. The Chinese people's legitimate right to development cannot be deprived,” said Wang.
According to the White House, the meeting follows recent high-level engagements, including one in May in Vienna between Sullivan and Wang, as well as meetings in recent months between Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen, Special Envoy John Kerry, Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, and their counterparts in Beijing.
US President Joe Biden also briefly met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in New Delhi early this month when India hosted the G-20 summit.
The White House said that Sullivan and Wang discussed key issues in the US-China bilateral relationship, global and regional security issues, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and cross-Strait issues, among other topics.
"The United States noted the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait," it added.