At the tense moment of the Ukrainian crisis, senior Chinese and American officials held talks in Rome on the 14th, and there were three major issues that were very important. Before that, the US side also wantonly spread false news and threatened to sanction China.
On the 14th local time, Yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, held a meeting with Sullivan, assistant to the US President for National Security Affairs, in Rome, Italy. This is the second meeting between Yang Jiechi and Sullivan after the Alaska Dialogue last March and the Zurich meeting last October. Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, pointed out that from the perspective of time arrangement, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has contributed to the high-level meeting between China and the United States to a certain extent. The US side has asked China for the Ukraine crisis, so it is eager to talk with The Chinese side and hopes that the Chinese side will play a role in resolving the conflict.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry pointed out that the focus of this meeting is to implement the important consensus reached at the video meeting between the heads of state of China and the United States last November, and the two sides will exchange views on Sino-US relations and international and regional issues of common concern. Wu Xinbo believes that China wants to focus on Sino-US relations, which includes concerns about three issues: First, how can the US side work in the same direction as China to improve bilateral relations. For example, last year, China proposed two lists to the US side, namely the "List of Wrong Words and Deeds that the US Side Must Stop" and the "List of Key Cases of Concern to the Chinese Side", but the implementation of these two lists by the US side is limited, and the Chinese side will use this meeting to urge the United States to continue to implement the Chinese concerns on the two lists.
Second, on the Taiwan issue, as we all know, the Biden administration has repeatedly promised not to support "Taiwan independence," but in reality, various small actions that send serious wrong signals to Taiwan occur frequently, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has bluntly said that the US side has constantly attacked and provoked issues involving China's core interests. For example, not long ago, the US delegation arrived in Taiwan to meet with Tsai Ing-wen, as well as the Biden administration's arms sales to Taiwan and the passage of US warships through the Taiwan Strait, and so on. In view of the US side's behavior of "saying one thing and doing another", in this talk, the Chinese side is bound to emphasize its position on the Taiwan issue; Third, on economic and trade issues, the Biden administration has not withdrawn the tariff stick left by the Trump administration so far, and the Chinese side will demand that the US side cancel the tariffs and sanctions imposed on the Chinese side.
It is worth mentioning that at this high-level meeting between China and the United States, both China and the United States announced it one day in advance, however, on the eve of the high-level meeting between China and the United States in Rome, the US media and officials successively released false news such as "China knows in advance about Russia's military attack plan" and "Russia has put forward military assistance requests to China", and also threatened that if China does not abide by Western trade and financial sanctions against Russia, it is likely that even China will be sanctioned.
The US move does not rule out the intention to use this Rome meeting to show the posture of pressure on China to gain a verbal advantage, but it is obvious that the US side cannot achieve its goal, and China does not eat this set at all, as early as last March, the fierce confrontation between China and the United States in the Anchorage Dialogue has proved this, and the dialogue can be said to have left a deep impression on the outside world. The US side should put away such small tricks, they must be clear, blindly pressure and criticism of China, not only useless, China will not only not buy it, but also a fierce backlash, the US side can not take advantage.