Sawt Falasteen - Top US, China officials meet for 'candid' talks

Both sides described the meeting in carefully choreographed statements as "candid, substantive and constructive," mirroring one another's language in the tentative, high-level rapprochement.

Topics discussed included the war in Ukraine and "cross-Strait issues," according to the White House, referring to Taiwan, which has been the target of increasingly heated rhetoric from Beijing in recent months.

Wang "comprehensively expounded upon China's solemn position" on Taiwan, Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua said, adding the two diplomats "agreed to continue to make good use of this strategic channel for communication."

Washington and Beijing's historically strained relationship has tightened further in recent months over commercial, political and military influence, particularly in the Pacific region.

The United States has sought leverage against an increasingly assertive China there through means such as its Quad partnership with India, Japan and Australia.

The group denies hostile intentions and stress that they are not a military alliance, but China has described the grouping as an attempt to encircle it.

Chinese diplomats have kept up a steady drumbeat of criticism against the administration of US President Joe Biden, and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping made a rare direct rebuke of Washington in March, accusing "Western countries led by the United States" of trying to undermine his country.

The meeting in Vienna is likely to reignite speculation about a potential meeting between Biden and Xi.

Asked about the issue Wednesday, Biden said there had been progress.

- Military exercises -

China claims Taiwan as its territory and has vowed to bring the island under its control one day, by force if necessary, and bristles at any official contact between Taipei and foreign governments.

The island lives under the constant fear of a Chinese invasion, and Beijing has stepped up its rhetoric and military activity around it in recent years.

Last month Beijing launched three days of military exercises around the democratic self-ruled island, simulating targeted strikes and a blockade.

The exercises came in response to a meeting between Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in California, which China's consulate in Los Angeles said undermined "the political foundation of China-US relations."

In response, the United States sailed a warship through the waters separating the island from mainland China, which also claims the entire Taiwan Strait as its own.

Led by the United States, multiple Western navies regularly conduct "freedom of navigation operations" to assert the international status of the Strait and the South China Sea.

A visit last year by McCarthy's Democratic predecessor Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan sparked China's largest-ever war games around Taiwan.

Earlier this year, a planned visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was canceled after the United States shot down a Chinese balloon it said was conducting surveillance over US territory -- a claim strenuously denied by Beijing.

U.AlSharif--SF-PST