President Donald Trump could soon meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after his first encounter Friday with his Chinese counterpart, despite the contentious relations between the two superpowers, APA reports ctiing Washington Post.
It was a “very constructive, positive meeting,” Rubio told reporters after discussions with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, adding that there was a lot that the two countries could work on together. Asked what the outlook was for Trump and Xi to meet in person later this year, the secretary said the “odds are high” and that both sides want it to happen. “I don’t have a date for you, but I think it’s coming,” he said.
He also downplayed the disputes between the two nations on issues such as trade and Taiwan, stating that the United States and China are “two big, powerful countries, and there are always going to be issues that we disagree on.”
The talks took place on the sidelines of a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Neither the United States nor China is a member, but both Washington and Beijing have been seeking to court Southeast Asian countries — even as many in the region are wary of alignment.
Rubio and Wang spoke for about an hour on Friday afternoon. Rubio had said Thursday that he wanted to speak to his Chinese counterpart about Beijing’s support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“The Chinese clearly have been supportive of the Russian effort. I think that, generally, they’ve been willing to help them as much as they can without getting caught,” Rubio said shortly after meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Rubio and Lavrov spoke again briefly on the sidelines of another event on Friday. Speaking to journalists later on Friday afternoon, Rubio declined to comment on the interaction, which appeared amicable. “It’s just a follow-up on an unrelated item to our conversation yesterday,” he said.
Rubio, who earned a reputation as a China hawk during his 14 years as a Republican senator, was blacklisted by Beijing in 2020 and remains on its sanctions list. He last spoke to Wang by phone in January, shortly after taking office as secretary of state.
This is Rubio’s first trip to Asia as the top U.S. diplomat, and it has been made more complicated by escalating tariff threats this week from Trump and growing demands that Asian allies spend more on defense. The persistent distractions of crises in the Middle East and Europe, meanwhile, caused Rubio to make his trip to the continent a brief, one-stop visit.
In public remarks in front of the ASEAN foreign ministers earlier Thursday, Rubio said that despite these difficulties, the United States is interested in “strong partnership” with Asian nations.
“When I hear in the news that perhaps the United States or the world might be distracted by events in other parts of the planet, I would say distraction is impossible,” Rubio said. He added that “the story of the next 50 years will largely be written here in this region, in this part of the world.”
Rubio originally intended to also visit Japan and South Korea on this trip, but he cut those stops so he could stay in Washington to attend meetings this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Meetings with representatives of both Asian nations were held on the sidelines of the ASEAN conference instead.
The U.S. delegation arrived in Asia just days after Trump threatened to reinstate his “Liberation Day” tariffs on numerous countries in the region unless they gave in to U.S. demands — a move that analysts have said would undermine efforts to isolate China.
Officials from Malaysia, among those targeted with a potential 25 percent tariff, have obliquely criticized Trump’s threats at the forum. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim stated in an opening speech on Wednesday that “tariffs, export restrictions and investment barriers have now become the sharpened instruments of geopolitical rivalry.”
Experts said that Rubio’s public messaging at the ASEAN meeting would be closely analyzed, not just by the 10 member nations but also rivals such as China.
Southeast Asian countries were looking for a “United States that is not only committed to its long-standing security role, which has underpinned regional peace and prosperity, but one that also extends a hand for genuine economic partnership, rather than wielding a fist of punitive, unilateral tariffs,” said Lynn Kuok, the Lee Kuan Yew chair at the Brookings Institution.
If the primary U.S. goal is to effectively counter China, Kuok added, “the administration’s foreign policy has been counterproductive.”
China has tried to take advantage of disquiet with Trump’s tariff policies in the region by presenting itself as a reliable partner. Wang on Thursday told a meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers that China wanted to work more closely with the region on artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure and renewable.
“Trade wars push up manufacturing costs and undermine stability of production and supply chains,” Wang said. “China is willing to use its own stable development to inject new momentum and provide new opportunities for common development in the region.”
Even so, Rubio said after the meeting with Wang that he has something in common with his counterpart, who, like Rubio, also serves as national security adviser.
“We have to be able to interact with one another,” Rubio said. “It’s just impossible for the foreign ministers of our respective countries to not engage in conversation. So I’m glad we had that meeting today.”
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