US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi held more than 12 hours of meetings in Bangkok, the White House said Monday. “Over the weekend, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held more than 12 hours of meetings in Bangkok with his counterpart from the People’s Republic of China, Director Wang Yi,” John Kirby, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the White House told reporters at a news conference here.

“Sullivan and Director Wang took stock of progress on key issues following the meeting between President (Joe) Biden and (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping) back in November. Now, that includes discussing efforts to resume military-to-military communication, which has occurred; addressing artificial intelligence safety and risks; and advancing bilateral counter-narcotics cooperation,” Kirby said.

In fact, the launch of a working group on counter-narcotics will begin Tuesday in Beijing. The US delegation will be led by Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Jen Daskal.

“The two sides also held constructive discussions on global and regional issues, including those related to Russia’s war against Ukraine; the Middle East, of course; the DPRK; the South China Sea; and Burma. And they also discussed cross-Strait issues,” Kirby said.

At a separate news conference with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed that the United States and other allies engage with China in dialogue on issues of mutual concern, like climate change and arms control.

“But at the same time, we have to take seriously the consequences for our security, the significant military buildup which China now is undertaking, and also the fact that the war in Ukraine is bringing China and Russia closer, with the substantial support that China provides to Russia in different ways and the promise of a limitless partnership in the midst of this brutal war of aggression against Ukraine,” he said.

“Of course, the size of the Chinese economy, the significant military buildup, all of that is a challenge for all NATO allies, also for the United States. The United States is by far the biggest ally, but it is a great advantage even for the United States to have so many friends and allies as you have in NATO. No other major power — Russia and China has nothing similar,” Stoltenberg said.

US represents 25 per cent of the world’s GDP. But together with NATO allies, we represent 50 per cent of the world’s GDP and 50 per cent of the world’s military might. So, there’s no reason why the US should deal with China alone. Together, we are so much stronger. It demonstrates that NATO is a good deal for the United States,” he said in response to a question.

“It’s good for all European allies, but also for the United States. So, therefore, one of the messages from the summit next summer I expect will be that we need to stand together in a more dangerous world. NATO is more needed than ever because we live in a more unpredictable and dangerous world,” he said.

US and China launch talks on fentanyl trafficking in a sign of cooperation amid differences

 Beijing (AP) American and Chinese officials met Tuesday to discuss joint efforts to stem the flow of fentanyl into the US, a sign of cooperation as the two global powers try to manage their contentious ties.

The two-day meeting was the first for a new counter-narcotics working group. One focus of the talks was fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that is ravaging America, and in particular ingredients for the drug that are made in China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to restart cooperation in a handful of areas, including drug trafficking, when he and US President Joe Biden met outside San Francisco in November. The agreements were a small step forward in a relationship strained by major differences on issues ranging from trade and technology to Taiwan and human rights.

The US wants China to do more to curb the export of chemicals that it says are processed into fentanyl, largely in Mexico, before the final product is smuggled into the United States.

Chinese Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong said the two sides had in-depth and pragmatic talks.

“We reached common understanding on the work plan for the working group,” he said at a ceremony marking the inauguration of the group.

The head of the US team, Jen Daskal, a deputy homeland security advisor in the White House, said that Biden had sent a high-level delegation “to underscore the importance of this issue to the American people.”

China used to be a major supplier of fentanyl, and the US has credited Beijing for a 2019 crackdown that led to “a drastic reduction in seizures of fentanyl shipments ... from China.” Now it wants Beijing to stop the export of the ingredients known as “precursors.” Synthetic opioids are the biggest killers in the deadliest drug crisis the US has ever seen. More than 100,000 deaths were linked to drug overdoses in 2022, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than two-thirds involved fentanyl or similar synthetic drugs.

China had previously rebuffed US appeals for help as relations between the two global powers deteriorated, often responding that the US should look inward to solve its domestic problems and not blame them on China.

Talks were formally put on ice in 2022, when China suspended cooperation in several areas including narcotics to protest a visit to Taiwan by then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.The ice began to thaw in the lead-up to the Biden-Xi meeting in November 2023. A US Senate delegation pressed the fentanyl issue on a visit to Beijing in October and said that Chinese officials expressed sympathy for the victims of America’s opioid crisis.

But China refused to discuss cooperation unless the US lifted sanctions on the Public Security Ministry’s Institute of Forensic Science. The Commerce Department had imposed the sanctions in 2020, accusing the institute complicity in human rights violations against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in China’s Xinjiang region.

The US quietly agreed to lift the sanctions to get cooperation on fentanyl. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi acknowledged “the removal of the obstacle of unilateral sanctions” in a speech on China-US relations earlier this month.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called it “an appropriate step to take” given what China was willing to do on the trafficking of fentanyl precursors.