China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a telephone conversation described as “positive and constructive” with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday, according to the state news agency Xinhua, with Beijing expressing willingness to strengthen communication and cooperation with Washington.
The call took place about a week before the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting in Shenzhen, China, where it is expected that Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump will meet.
The current stability in China-U.S. relations was not easily achieved, Wang said, describing it as “a rational choice made by the two major powers based on their respective and shared interests,” according to Xinhua.
There was no immediate comment from the U.S. State Department about the call.
Xi and Trump have met twice this year, and Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that efforts were underway to organize a trilateral meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit involving Trump, Xi, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rubio said that Trump wants this meeting to take place and added, “We think that this should be possible.”
Trump said on Sunday that he thought he would meet Xi and Putin in Shenzhen to discuss the end of the war in Iran and denuclearization.
He said in October that he was open to trilateral talks on arms control with Xi and Putin, which, he said, would focus on nuclear weapons, although China has shown less interest in these discussions.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last month that its “nuclear potential is in no way at the same level as that of the United States and Russia” and that it would be “neither fair, nor reasonable, nor realistic” to ask China to participate in trilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations at this stage.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Putin proposed holding a trilateral meeting to discuss the end of Russia’s long-running war in Ukraine.
The summits between Trump and Xi this year appear to have helped stabilize the relations, but contributed little to narrowing the broad differences between the two strategic rivals.
In September, in Washington, they agreed to a two-month extension of the trade truce that was due to expire in November, but disputes over tariffs, Chinese purchases of American products, exports of rare earths, and technology restrictions remained unresolved.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said that the two sides would move forward with a new dialogue on artificial intelligence, but should not harbor illusions about their differences as they seek to manage the risks of the technology while competing for supremacy in AI.
