India has considered the recent talks between the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi as an exercise in futility, with Beijing showing no sign of reducing military pressure on Taiwan. Moreover, China is also reluctant to pressure Iran into stopping Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea in what is yet another signal that the interaction between top officials from Washington and Beijing in Bangkok failed to achieve the real objective.
“The White House Readout may have termed the talks as candid, substantive and constructive discussions on global and regional issues, but the reality is that the two sides could not address the issues of the Red Sea crisis and China’s military pressure on Taiwan the way they should have been dealt with,” the diplomats who were closely following the development told The Daily Guardian here in New Delhi. “The White House readout does not mention how China is going to address the US concerns on these two major issues which were on top of the agenda on the table between Sullivan and Wang Yi,” added the diplomats.
The Daily Guardian spoke to the diplomatic officials who were not only closely following the Sullivan-Wang Yi talks that took place in Bangkok but also thoroughly analysing and assessing various documents like the White House Readout and Chinese foreign minister’s statements related to the exercise. “We found that the US-China officials’ talks were headed nowhere. Even though the two sides have agreed to continue to talk in future, they will hardly meet in near future as China has not given any positive indication on Taiwan and Red Sea problems “, said the officials. Sullivan and Wang Yi held talks in Bangkok on January 26-27 in what was termed as an exercise to follow up on the Woodside Summit between President Joe Biden and President Xi Jinping last November. China’s foreign ministry also said that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang YI had “candida, substantive and fruitful strategic communication” with the US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
While conveying Biden’s message Sullivan stressed the need for China to reduce military build-up around Taiwan, Wang emphasized that “The Taiwan question is a matter of China’s own internal affairs, and the elections in the Taiwan region cannot change the basic fact that Taiwan is part of China”, diplomatic sources told The Daily Guardian. Moreover, China also did not give any positive message on Sullivan’s request to Beijing to exercise its influence over Iran to rein in Houthis who are attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea region, sources said. This clearly means that China is going to step up coercive pressure on Taiwan in future too, and it is not also going to intervene in the Red Sea issue. NSA Sullivan understood this message quite clearly as well, an official who is in touch with the US counterparts told The Daily Guardian.
China continued to send over 30 warplanes and several navy ships toward Taiwan when Sullivan and Wang Yi were in Bangkok for talks.
“The message is loud and clear that the talks aimed at reducing tensions between the world’s largest superpowers came a cropper,” said senior officials at South Block. In fact, tensions between Beijing and Taipei have remained high ever since Lai Ching-te won Taiwan’s presidential election early this month. The campaign was focused on pushing back against China’s threats against the island. “China has influence over Tehran; they have influence in Iran. And they have the ability to have conversations with Iranian leaders that — that we can’t,” John Kirby, White House National Security Council spokesman said while talking to the media in Washington. He was referring to Sullivan’s request to Wang Yi to ask Iran to stop Houth attacks in the Red Sea. Wang reportedly remained non-committal on this issue as well.