欧

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with US Ambassador to China David Perdue in Beijing on August 26, exchanging views on implementing the consensus reached by the two countries' heads of state, promoting stable development in China-US relations, and discussing how to strengthen communication, deepen mutual understanding and manage differences between the two sides. It should be noted that this meeting was not, as some earlier reports suggested, a "China-US foreign ministers'" meeting — the US official present was Ambassador Perdue, not the US Secretary of State (the US counterpart to a foreign minister), while the Chinese side was represented by Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and Foreign Minister. This ambassador-level meeting took place ahead of an expected summit between the two countries' heads of state in Washington on September 24, drawing significant attention from observers.

According to a statement released by China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Yi said that under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, China and the United States are working to build a constructive relationship of strategic stability. He stressed that improving and developing China-US relations, coexisting peacefully on the basis of mutual respect and achieving win-win cooperation, serves the fundamental interests of both peoples and meets the common expectations of the international community. At the same time, Wang Yi acknowledged that China-US relations still face various risks and challenges that both sides need to seriously address.

Wang Yi put forward specific proposals during the meeting, saying both sides should put into practice the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, focus on a positive agenda, properly manage differences, remove interference and overcome obstacles to high-level exchanges between the two countries, and push China-US relations toward stable, healthy and sustainable development. The remarks are seen as China clearing the way ahead of the leaders' meeting expected in September, while also indirectly addressing recent friction and uncertainty in the bilateral relationship.

In response, US Ambassador David Perdue said the two heads of state have provided important strategic guidance for China-US relations, and that President Trump's visit to China in May this year achieved very successful results. Perdue said the US side is willing to strengthen communication with China, advance cooperation across various fields, prepare well for the next round of important high-level interactions, and build a constructive relationship of strategic stability with China on the basis of mutual respect and reciprocity. He later described his talks with Wang Yi and other Chinese officials as "productive" on social media, adding that the US and China were working together to achieve a constructive relationship of strategic stability with fairness and reciprocity.

Reports indicate that during the meeting, the US side also expressed condolences to China over a recent mudslide disaster at the Gyirong (Jilong) port area in Tibet. The disaster struck at around 10:30 a.m. on August 26, triggered when a glacier on the northern slope of Langtang Lirung peak in Nepal, at an elevation of roughly 5,200 meters, broke off and collapsed, producing an ice avalanche debris flow that evolved into a mudslide. Traveling roughly 22 kilometers in just six to seven minutes, it struck the Gyirong border crossing on the China-Nepal frontier, destroying the Rasuwa border bridge and the port's joint inspection building, and burying numerous warehouses and shops used for cross-border trade. Chinese authorities reported that within days of the disaster, 16 people had been confirmed dead and 546 remained missing, with Tibet's border-inspection and fire-rescue units deploying hundreds of personnel in search-and-rescue operations. The detail suggests that despite ongoing disagreements between China and the US over trade, Taiwan and other issues, the two sides continue to maintain channels of communication on specific humanitarian matters.

This meeting took place against the backdrop of a still-fragile balance in China-US economic and trade relations. In October 2025, the two countries' leaders met in South Korea and reached a phased consensus on a range of issues including tariffs, fentanyl, soybean purchases and the transfer of TikTok's equity, after which the two sides extended their suspension of reciprocal tariffs to November 10, 2026. Entering 2026, however, friction has not fully subsided: the Office of the US Trade Representative announced Section 232 tariffs of 10 to 12.5 percent on 60 economies, including China, effective July 24, further raising the overall tariff rate on Chinese goods exported to the US. The Taiwan question also remains a focal point of disagreement, with China repeatedly stressing that Taiwan is the "most important and most sensitive" issue in China-US relations. Against this backdrop, creating a favorable atmosphere ahead of the leaders' meeting was an important consideration behind this meeting between Wang Yi and Perdue.

The meeting is the latest sign of warming China-US relations in the second half of 2026. In May this year, President Trump traveled to China, a visit both sides described as fruitful; the two countries' leaders have since maintained communication through various channels and reached a series of consensuses on deepening trade and economic ties and strengthening high-level exchanges. According to public statements from the US side, President Xi Jinping is expected to travel to Washington on September 24 to meet with President Trump, with artificial intelligence expected to be a major focus of the talks. If the trip goes ahead as planned, it would mark Xi's first visit to the United States in more than a decade, since his September 2015 state visit — another important step in this year's exchange of visits between the two heads of state, and the core objective that this meeting between Wang Yi and Perdue was meant to serve by "removing obstacles."

Perdue has served as US Ambassador to China since May 2025. A former US Senator from Georgia who served from 2015 to 2021, he lost his re-election bid to Democrat Jon Ossoff in a runoff in 2020, and in 2022 challenged then-incumbent Governor Brian Kemp for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Georgia, losing that primary. Perdue is a cousin of Sonny Perdue, another former Georgia governor who served as US Secretary of Agriculture under the first Trump administration. Before entering politics, he spent more than four decades in the corporate world, serving as President of the Reebok brand and as Chairman and CEO of Dollar General, and spending much of his career overseeing Asia operations, living and working for years in Singapore and Hong Kong. He was confirmed by the US Senate in April 2025 by a vote of 67 to 29, and formally took up his post on May 16 of that year; some media have described him as a China hawk. Analysts say that against the backdrop of a gradual repair in China-US relations, this meeting between China's foreign minister and the US ambassador is an important diplomatic step paving the way for the exchange of visits between the two heads of state this year, and the future trajectory of China-US relations remains to be seen.