WASHINGTON: White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Malta this weekend, a US official said on Sunday, as the world’s two largest economies seek to stabilize troubled relations.

Sullivan’s meeting with Wang was the latest in a series of high-level discussions between US and Chinese officials that could lay the groundwork for a meeting of President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year.

Sullivan last met Wang in Vienna in May.

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Biden this month expressed disappointment that Xi skipped a summit of Group of 20 leaders in India, but said he would “get to see him.” The next likely opportunity for Biden to hold talks with Xi is an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco in November.

US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have travelled to China this year to ensure continued communication between the two countries amid tensions that flared after the US military shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that traveled over the United States.

Biden and Xi last met in 2022 on the sidelines of a G20 summit on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali.