US and China resume dialogue at ASEAN gathering today

KUALA LUMPUR: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Friday on the sidelines of an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in Malaysia, the State Department said.

The meeting comes as Washington and Beijing remain locked in disputes over issues ranging from trade and fentanyl to Taiwan and advanced technology.

Rubio and Wang are in Kuala Lumpur for a gathering of foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which Japan, South Korea and Australia are also attending.

Tensions between Washington and Beijing have soared since US President Donald Trump took office in January, with both countries engaging in a tariff war that sent duties on each other’s exports soaring.

At one point, the United States hit China with additional levies of 145 percent on its goods, as both sides engaged in tit-for-tat escalation. China’s countermeasures on US goods reached 125 percent.

Beijing and Washington agreed in Geneva in May to temporarily slash their staggeringly high tariffs — an outcome Trump described as a "total reset".