White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is greeted by Yang Tao, Director General of the State Department’s North American and Oceanic Affairs Department, and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns upon his arrival in Beijing on August 27, 2024. | Photo Credit: Reuters
A top White House official is there to discuss relations with China, which have been severely tested during President Joe Biden’s tenure.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan has been Mr. Biden’s go-to adviser for often unannounced talks with the Communist Party’s top foreign policy official to try to manage growing differences between Washington and Beijing.
Upon landing, Mr. Sullivan was greeted by Yang Tao, head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s North America and Oceanic Department, and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
Mr. Sullivan’s trip, which will last until Thursday, has a limited goal — to try to maintain communications in a relationship that was broken for most of a year in 2022-23 and could only be repaired over several months.
Though no major announcements are expected, Mr. Sullivan’s meetings could lay the groundwork for a possible final summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping before Biden leaves office in January.
Mr. Sullivan will hold talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who also holds the senior position of director of the Office of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission.
It is unusual to hold both posts. Mr. Wang initially resigned as foreign minister, but he returned nearly seven months later, in July 2023, when his successor was removed for reasons that have not been made public.
The Biden administration has taken a tough stance toward China, viewing it as a strategic competitor, restricting its companies’ access to advanced technology and confronting this rising power as it seeks to exert influence over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Already frosty relations further cooled after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a senior US lawmaker, visited Taiwan in August 2022. Hopes of restoring ties were dashed the following February, when a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew across the US before being shot down by US forces.
At the meeting between Mr Sullivan and Mr Wang in Vienna in May 2023, the two countries began a delicate process of getting relations back on track. Since then, they have met twice more in a third country, Malta and Thailand. Their first talks will take place in Beijing this week.
China’s foreign ministry said this week that relations with the US were at “a critical juncture”. It said the two sides were engaging on climate and other issues, but it accused the US of persistently obstructing and pressuring China.