On the fringes of ASEAN negotiations in Laos, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi will have a meeting with his US colleague Antony Blinken, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on Friday.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stated, “Foreign Minister Wang Yi will meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Laos.”
Mao stated that the two leading diplomats will “exchange views on issues of common concern”.
Beijing “will release information in a timely manner regarding the specific time of the meeting and the circumstances of the meeting,” she said, without specifying when the meeting would take place.
“You can stay tuned,” Mao added.
On the fringes of the ASEAN summit in Laos, which began with the South China Sea and the crisis in Myanmar as major topics of discussion, Wang met with his Russian colleague Sergei Lavrov on Thursday.
The meeting took place the day after Wang met with Dmytro Kuleba, the chief diplomat for Ukraine, in China.
Beijing has been called a “decisive enabler” of Moscow’s war in Ukraine by NATO countries, despite China being Russia’s closest political and economic friend.
Last Monday, Blinken announced that he will be meeting Wang in Laos.
“I speak to him on a fairly regular basis, and I’ll be seeing him next week, in fact, in Laos,” Blinken said during a security forum in the US state of Colorado.
Relations between the US and China have steadied following a summit between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in November 2023, despite differences in a number of important areas.
However, the two nations are still at odds over a wide range of issues, including commerce, human rights, and Taiwan’s status as an independent island.
