The meeting convened after several high level officials visited Beijing in recent months and just before Wang’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later this week.

China said Vice President Han Zheng will represent China at the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York, suggesting Wang Yi and Xi Jinping will not attend.

In readouts issued by the White House and China’s Foreign Ministry, the two-day talks in Malta were characterized as “candid, substantive and constructive.”