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Alyssa Chen

The Chinese president’s planned trip to the US and the Beijing-Manila South China Sea dispute led the agenda when the top Chinese and American diplomats met in the Philippines on Wednesday.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met in the Philippine capital, Manila, for 90 minutes of talks on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ meeting, which ends on Thursday.
According to a readout published by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, Wang described the meeting as “pragmatic, positive and constructive”, and urged both sides to pursue “strategic stability” and “peaceful coexistence”.
Without explicitly mentioning the issue, Wang said he had conveyed China’s position on the “recent series of negative words and actions by the US” and called on Washington to respect China’s core interests.
“Our responsibility now is to follow the path set by the two heads of state, eliminate interference and overcome obstacles, and ensure that the consensus reached by the leaders is translated into consensus and action across the entire government and all sectors,” Wang was quoted as saying.
Rubio also said there were still differences between the two countries but that their job was to manage them.
He added that there were areas of potential cooperation, and they discussed President Xi Jinping’s planned trip to the US, according to Reuters.
“The work we need to do now [for] September is to identify what those areas are, so that we can lay the groundwork for a very positive visit … we talked a lot about that,” Rubio said.
He described Monday’s clash between Beijing and Manila over Second Thomas Shoal as very negative and benefiting no one.
When asked about the progress of arms sales to Taiwan – a sensitive subject at the China-US summit in May – Rubio said they were still under internal review because Washington had to take its own stockpile and availability into consideration.
“There is a huge effort on our part to restart a definite defence industrial base and restart its ability to produce,” he said.


Washington is reviewing a US$14 billion weapons package to the island and has not yet formally submitted the proposed sale to Congress, with the delay attributed to production capacity and ammunition reserves.
After his trip to Beijing in May, US President Donald Trump said that holding off on the package could be a “negotiating chip”.
Beijing sees Taiwan as part of China to be reunited by force if necessary.
Most countries, including the US, do not recognise Taiwan as an independent state, but Washington is opposed to any attempt to take the self-ruled island by force and is committed to supplying it with weapons.
On the subject of America’s conflict with Iran, Rubio described China as in some ways cooperative with the US.
“One thing in particular is that they have been pretty clear that they don’t support any tolling or restrictions on global shipping through international waterways,” he said of China.


Before Rubio’s trip to Manila, the US State Department said the visit was meant to advance “a clear US priority: a free and open Indo-Pacific that delivers safety, security and prosperity for the region and for the American people”.
The diplomatic engagement comes as a rekindled US-Iran war puts Southeast Asian economies under intense economic and energy strain, and follows Washington’s allegations of Chinese electoral interference in the 2020 presidential election.
In a prime-time speech last week, Trump accused China of meddling in US elections, alleging it obtained 220 million American voter records beginning in the 2020 election cycle for “the largest compromise of election data in history”.
Beijing firmly rejected the accusation on Friday.
On Wednesday, Rubio said the allegations of election interference were not discussed in his meeting with Wang.
He also said the state of China-Japan ties was “troubling”, and that deep cooperation between Washington and Tokyo would continue.
Wang and Rubio last spoke in early July in what both sides described as a “positive and constructive” phone call. It was the first reported cabinet-level communication since Trump’s state visit in May.
The dialogue is a critical follow-up to the summit in which both countries pledged to establish a “new vision of building a constructive China-US relationship of strategic stability”, with Beijing committed to buying more planes, agricultural produce and energy products.
The rival powers are in a fragile trade truce reached by Xi and Trump in October last year and are trying to manage risks and stabilise ties to avert a total decoupling.
But their underlying tensions and rivalry – such as on critical supply chains and advanced technology – remain unchanged.
China has increasingly said it calls for managed competition rather than confrontation, while avoiding major concessions on issues over trade or Taiwan.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the US did not renew a national emergency declaration over Hong Kong and lifted sanctions on nine government officials from Hong Kong and mainland China.
The move was welcomed in Beijing, which described Washington’s decision as “an important step in fulfilling the consensus reached in bilateral talks”.
On Tuesday, Trump signalled that Washington would confront Beijing over the alleged interference but played down the prospect of retaliation.
“We’re going to talk to them about it,” Trump said, adding that the alleged interference “took place a long time ago” and that China might be “a little bit different today than it was then”.
“They do things to us and we do things to them,” he said. “I’ll be honest, we do things to them too. It’s not a one-way street, but we’ll be talking to them.”
Both sides have indicated that Xi’s planned visit remains on track.
On Sunday, before heading to Manila, Rubio said Xi’s trip was still expected to happen in September.
And on Monday, China’s foreign ministry said that both sides had kept in contact on the arrangements for the heads of states’ interactions later this year.
“We anticipate that the trip is happening in September. They’ve continued to send over their teams to prepare for it, and I’ve heard nothing otherwise,” Rubio said.


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America’s top diplomat describes dispute between Beijing and Manila over Second Thomas Shoal as very negative and benefiting no one


America’s top diplomat describes dispute between Beijing and Manila over Second Thomas Shoal as very negative and benefiting no one.


Wang Yi and Marco Rubio at Asean discuss Xi’s planned US visit, South China Sea clash

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}America’s top diplomat describes dispute between Beijing and Manila over Second Thomas Shoal as very negative and benefiting no one

America’s top diplomat describes dispute between Beijing and Manila over Second Thomas Shoal as very negative and benefiting no one