White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet in Switzerland this week with a ranking Chinese diplomat, the White House said Tuesday. 

Sullivan’s meeting with Yang Jiechi on Wednesday in Zurich comes amid heightened tension between the two superpowers over trade, Taiwan and other issues.

The meeting is aimed at fulfilling an earlier pledge by both countries to improve communications.

“They will follow up on President Biden’s September 9 call with President Xi (Jinping) as we continue to seek to responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China,” the White House said in a statement.

The meeting will be Sullivan’s first in-person meeting with Yang, a former ambassador to the U.S., since the two traded scathing remarks during a March meeting in Alaska.

The silence between the leaders of the world’s largest economies had been approaching seven months until Biden spoke with Xi September 9. During that call, the presidents discussed the importance of not allowing competition between the two countries to escalate into conflict.

Some information for this report came from Reuters. 
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