Talks between China's foreign policy chief Wang Yi and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan in Austria this week may help pave the way for further high-level engagements, including talks between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, but diplomatic observers are cautious about how much progress will be made.
High-level contacts were largely suspended after Washington shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon in February, an incident that prompted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to call off a planned visit to China.
Beijing was incensed by Blinken's decision to cancel the trip - which some observers described as the only tangible result of Xi and Biden's meeting in Bali in November - and has since been reluctant to resume talks.
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Both sides described the Wang-Sullivan talks as "candid" and "constructive", with Beijing adding that they included "discussions on removing obstacles in China-US relations and stabilising the relationship".
The White House said the talks, held on Wednesday and Thursday in Vienna, were "substantive" covering key issues such as Taiwan, "global and regional security issues" and Russia's war against Ukraine.
It was Wang's first meeting with Sullivan since he took on the top foreign policy role and marked the highest-level dialogue between the two countries since last year's Bali meeting.
"This meeting was part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition," the White House said. "The two sides agreed to maintain this important strategic channel of communication to advance these objectives, building on the engagement between [Biden and Xi] in Bali."
China's state news agency Xinhua said Wang "fully expounded China's solemn position on the Taiwan question" and added that the pair had discussed "the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, Ukraine and other international and regional issues of common interest".
"Both sides agreed to continue to make good use of this strategic communication channel," it added.
Global Times, a state-run tabloid, reported that Wang had stressed that Taiwan was an "untouchable red line" and urged the US not to oversimplify the bilateral relation into a "competition".
"The Chinese side has also called on the US side to remove the unreasonable restrictions and interferences to people-to-people exchanges," the report added, citing an unnamed Chinese official.
According to a senior Biden administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, both Wang and Sullivan recognised that the balloon saga was "unfortunate", but the White House was "looking to move beyond" recent tensions.
The official said both sides agreed to "reestablish standard, normal channels of communications", and Sullivan had stressed that Washington did not seek conflict or confrontation.
On Taiwan, the official said Sullivan repeated Washington's commitment to its "one-China policy" and said it did not want any unilateral change to the "status quo", adding that the two sides had managed the issue "for over 40 years without conflict".
The US official said the White House expected the two sides to continue engaging in the coming months but Wang and Sullivan had not discussed possible dates for a rescheduled visit by Blinken.
Although it remains unclear which side initiated the Vienna talks, Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University, said the meeting was "timely and necessary".
"It was not a total surprise and it's good to see there is consensus on the necessity of resuming direct communications and dialogue for the sake of crisis management and exploring possible opportunities for cooperation," he said.
Zhu expressed concern about the lack of an effective crisis-management mechanism but said the fact that the meeting took place amid the current tensions underlined Beijing's pragmatism.
"That's what diplomacy is about. Neither side can dwell on finger-pointing and verbal sparring. Both China and the US share concerns about many pressing issues, including the global implications of a prolonged war in Ukraine," he said.
He said despite the lack of progress on Taiwan and Ukraine, "it is still necessary for both sides to maintain regular and timely communication".
Chong Ja Ian, professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, said the meeting indicated that Beijing was "concerned enough to alter their position" and served as a "starting point".
"It could eventually lead to more meetings among senior officials, but that process is difficult to predict," he added.
Beijing has reportedly been resisting efforts by the White House to arrange a call between Biden and Xi, although the US president said on Wednesday that there had been progress in this area and he thought "it'll work out".
The Vienna meeting may have helped prepare for such a conversation - previous calls were preceded by similar meetings between Sullivan and Wang's predecessor Yang Jiechi - and although Xi publicly accused the US of "all-round containment, encirclement and suppression" against China in March there have been other signs that the two sides are talking again.
US ambassador Nicholas Burns met Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing this week, while Biden's special envoy for climate, John Kerry, spoke to his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua last month.
The White House has also floated the possibility of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo visiting China at some point, while the Pentagon is seeking a meeting between Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu during the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore next month.
US trade representative Katherine Tai is also planning to meet Wang, the commerce minister, in Detroit later this month, according to Bloomberg, but Beijing has so far refused to confirm if any of these exchanges will go ahead.
Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the Wang-Sullivan meeting had been "helpful", but was cautious about the prospect of further meetings.
"Both sides realised that a warlike scenario could happen. They are trying to maintain some level of communication to avoid that scenario," he said.
Chong added that while the meeting may allow some room for cooperation, there was "nothing deterministic" about the exchanges.
Zhu also said it was unlikely that Biden and Xi would talk soon, given Beijing's ambivalence about further exchanges and a hardening of positions on both sides.
"We'll have to see when and if Blinken can come to visit China. From China's perspective, the upcoming G7 summit and Biden's planned visit to the South Pacific islands are part of Washington's Indo-Pacific strategy that is clearly aimed at further alienating and suppressing China," he said.
Additional reporting by Dewey Sim
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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