Senior Chinese, US officials hold talks in Rome

Ministry: Key issue is for nations to implement consensus reached by leaders in November

Senior Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi met with United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan in Rome on Monday, in the latest diplomatic engagement between Beijing and Washington amid their worsened ties.

By press time, few details were known about the meeting, but the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the key issue is to implement the important consensus reached by the Chinese and US heads of state at their virtual summit in November.

"The two sides have been in contact on the matter since late last year, stayed in communication about the meeting and set a time for the meeting according to their schedules. They will exchange views on China-US relations and international and regional issues of common concern," ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a news conference said on Monday.

The Ukraine crisis will also certainly be one of the topics to be discussed during the meeting, he said.

The previous meeting between Yang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, and Sullivan was held in Zurich, Switzerland, in October.

During the virtual meeting between President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden on Nov 16, the two leaders had thorough and in-depth communication and exchanges on issues of strategic, overarching and fundamental importance shaping the development of China-US relations and on important issues of mutual interest. The two sides agreed to maintain close communication in different forms and steer China-US relations back on the right track of sound and steady development.

On March 5, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Speaking at a news conference in Beijing on March 7, Wang said that in a globalized and interdependent world, how China and the US find the right way forward and manage to get along is both a new question for humanity and something that must be worked out together by China and the US.

Observers said that the high-level contact between China and the US will certainly help them avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation. However, Washington's approach of "saying one thing but doing another" on China's major concerns as well as its taking China as a strategic competitor will undermine the bilateral ties.

The Taiwan question has been the most sensitive in the China-US relationship. The Foreign Ministry expressed strong opposition to the US on Monday for its adoption of a fiscal omnibus bill－the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2022－which carries a Taiwan-related provision.

The US' move grossly interferes in China's domestic affairs in an attempt to engage in political manipulation by using the so-called issue of the Taiwan map to create "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan", said Zhao, the ministry spokesman, on Monday.

Zhao reiterated that there is but one China in the world and Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese territory. Any map accurately depicting Taiwan should be based on such a fact, he added.