ISTANBUL

The upcoming US presidential election may figure during bilateral talks when national security adviser Jake Sullivan makes his first trip to China next week, Financial Times reported on Friday.

Sullivan will hold talks with top diplomat Wang Yi from Tuesday, and the duo is also expected to discuss possibility of a meeting, including face-to-face, between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden.

Xi and Biden met last November in San Francisco and the US president is set to leave office in coming January.

The White House expects “Wang to ask about the US election,” the FT said.

To stabilize relations between the world’s top two economies, Wang and Sullivan have held several rounds of talks in the US as well as in third nations including Malta, Austria and Thailand.

However, this would be Sullivan’s first trip to China in his current role as Biden’s adviser on national security.

Sullivan’s trip is “partly about maintaining stability during a period of high political activity in the United States and … general geopolitical uncertainty,” the UK-based daily quoted an unnamed US official.

China’s foreign minister would “probably ask, ‘what does a baton pass from Biden to Harris look like’ if she wins November’s election.”

“Sullivan would say that he expected ‘more continuity than change in China policy’ under Harris,” said the US official.

If the meeting goes as reported, Wang and Sullivan are expected to discuss Taiwan, high tech issues as well as Russia-Ukraine war and disputes in South China Sea.