US, China envoys to meet in possible prelude to Trump-Xi summit

The Star

11-07-2025

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with his Chinese counterpart at a summit in Kuala Lumpur on Friday (July 11), the first in-person session between the two and a possible prelude to a presidential summit.
The top American envoy is scheduled to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kuala Lumpur at 3pm local time, according to Rubio's public schedule.
Both officials are attending a gathering of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, which ends Friday.
The meeting will be among the highest-level sitdowns between the two countries since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January.
A positive conversation between the top envoys will increase the chance of a leadership summit that may further ease tensions following their trade truce, although many points of friction remain.
Rubio told reporters Thursday that he would raise Chinese support for Russia in any meeting with Wang.
"The Chinese clearly have been supportive of the Russian effort, and I think that generally they've been willing to help them as much as they can without getting caught,' he said after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Beijing's economic and diplomatic backing for Moscow after it invaded Ukraine is just one of many sticking points in relations between the world's two largest economies.
In their last phone call, in January, Rubio raised concerns about China's behaviour toward Taiwan and the South China Sea, while Wang warned the US to handle Taiwan-related matters carefully.
Trump has said he would like to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping this year, and a senior Chinese official last week expressed optimism over bilateral ties.
In a phone conversation in early June, Xi invited Trump to visit China. The US administration has been reaching out to business executives to weigh interest in accompanying him on a possible trip to China this year, Bloomberg News reported last week.
In February, Wang travelled to New York for a United Nations Security Council meeting, but no bilateral meeting with the Trump administration took place.
In the following weeks, a series of tit-for-tat measures saw US tariffs on Chinese products jump to as high as 145% before it was suspended for 90 days after negotiations in May.
"Considering that Trump seems to be toying with the idea of meeting Xi on the sidelines of the Apec summit, or even in Beijing possibly in early September, the two senior diplomats of both countries could explore whether this is a promising course of action and could smooth feathers a bit to get there,' said Klaus Larres, professor of history and international affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The US and China both belong to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a regional forum that leaders of the two nations have used as an opportunity to meet in recent years. South Korea is hosting the forum this year at the end of October and start of November.
Signs have emerged in recent weeks that both sides are beginning to deliver on promises made in trade talks held in Geneva and London in the past two months.
China agreed to resume shipments of rare earths, while the US offered to ease some export restrictions on ethane, chip-design software and jet-engine components.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday that he expected to meet with his Chinese counterpart in the coming weeks to advance discussions on trade and other issues. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told the broadcast network that the two sides would kick off "a bigger trade conversation' in early August, just before the levy reprieve is set to expire.
China in 2020 twice sanctioned Rubio, who was then a senator from Florida, over his criticism of Beijing's handling of Hong Kong and Xinjiang, as well as his push for laws to punish the Chinese government.
Beijing has indicated that the sanctions wouldn't impact official exchanges. - Bloomberg