WASHINGTON, November 6. /TASS/. US-China consultations on arms control will be held in Washington on Monday. The last time such contacts between China and the United States took place was in July 2019, during the tenure of former US President Donald Trump. Thus, this dialogue has not been maintained for about four and a half years.
At the same time, this is not the beginning of China-US negotiations on the reduction of strategic offensive weapons. As the Wall Street Journal reported on November 1, the new meetings, according to the American administration, will primarily tackle possible ways to prevent misunderstandings in the sphere of strategic stability between Washington and Beijing.
The US delegation to the consultations will be led by Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance Mallory Stewart. Her counterpart will be Sun Xiaobo, Director-General of the Department of Arms Control of the Foreign Ministry.
Intensifying dialogue
The consultations come at a time of marked intensification of US-China contacts on virtually the entire bilateral agenda. The current talks have been preceded by an exchange of ministerial-level visits. These included visits by foreign ministers (Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Washington on October 26-28, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing on June 18-19).
This resumption of dialogue after a period of sharp decline in relations between Beijing and Washington is expected to be culminate in a new face-to-face meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden in less than two weeks. Both sides are preparing for the possibility that this round of high-level talks could take place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco, California, scheduled for November 15-17.
Topics on agenda
The consultations between Mallory Stewart and Sun Xiaobo, according to the US media, will also be primarily aimed at preventing mistakes in the area of strategic stability.
A source told the Wall Street Journal that the US side would also like to discuss possible steps that could be taken bilaterally and multilaterally. In addition, the source confirmed that the US wants to ask China questions about its expansion of its nuclear arsenal, its doctrine on the use of such weapons, and the concept of strategic stability as seen by Beijing. The US official pointed out that these discussions are much needed to better understand China’s views on the abovementioned issues.