US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. (Photo: Reuters)

The talks, the first meeting on nuclear arms between the US and China since President Barack Obama’s administration, were between Mallory Stewart, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, and Sun Xiaobo, Director General of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s Department of Arms Control.

A number of Pentagon reports said Beijing is expanding its nuclear weapons arsenal. The US urged China to join trilateral nuclear arms talks with Moscow but China earlier rejected any prospect of joining in nuclear talks with the US and Russia, saying Beijing’s nuclear stockpile is still much smaller than either Russia’s or the United States’.

Following a recent visit to Washington by China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will host Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, for two days of intensive diplomacy in San Francisco later this week.

In a remark, Yellen said the US-China relationship is among the most consequential in the world. "We need to get it right—for Americans and for people around the world. As I’ve said, the United States does not seek to decouple from China."

"A full separation of our economies, or an approach in which countries including those in the Indo-Pacific are forced to take sides, would have significant negative global repercussions," Yellen said, adding both the US and China have no interest in such a divided world and its disastrous effects.

The bilateral talks are part of a broader push between American and Chinese officials to make progress on specific issues, ahead of an expected meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum next week.