Sullivan in China, in an effort to maintain lines of communication

2024-08-27 15:38:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Sullivan in China, in an effort to maintain lines of communication

Jake Sullivan

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for talks aimed at easing tensions between the United States and China. Both countries want to avoid a major crisis in the run-up to the presidential election in the United States, which could set the tone for ties between the strategic competitors during the next US presidency.

The goal of Mr. Sullivan's visit to China, which runs until Thursday, is modest: To try to keep the lines of communication open in a relationship that weakened severely in 2022-23. He met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday.

"President Biden has made it very clear in his conversations with President Xi that he is committed to handling this important relationship responsibly. The results of the high-level meeting and the work we have done since then prove that we are working to to avoid the transition from competition to conflict and to find ways to work together where our interests align," Mr. Sullivan said.

Mr. Wang, who is also the highest foreign policy official in the Communist Party of China, said that the relationship between the two countries is of critical importance to them and to the whole world.

"The key is to continue in the direction of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and cooperation in favor of both sides. The implementation of the commitments between our two presidents at their meeting in San Francisco is our important responsibility."

Mr. Sullivan has been the top official in President Joe Biden's administration who has held often unannounced talks with Mr. Wang in an effort to smooth the growing differences between Washington and Beijing.

No major announcements are expected from the visit, although Mr. Sullivan's meetings could lay the groundwork for a possible high-level meeting between President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping before Mr. Biden's term ends in January.

Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University in Beijing, says it is important for the United States and China to avoid any crisis in the remaining months of Mr. Biden's administration, as doing so could set the tone. of US-China relations for the next presidency.

"The purpose of this visit is not to achieve any new progress, but to maintain the stability of relations that were stabilized last year through strategic communication, as well as to avoid new crises in the coming months," he says.

President Biden's administration has maintained a tough line on China, with which the United States has a strategic competitor, limiting its companies' access to advanced technology and condemning its growing aggression over Taiwan and the South China Sea. .

The strained relationship between the two countries suffered a further blow after then-Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022.

Hopes of stabilizing ties were dashed in February 2023, when a suspected Chinese reconnaissance balloon hovered in US airspace before being shot down by the US military.

Mr Sullivan and Mr Wang met in Vienna in May 2023 to try to begin a delicate process of getting relations back on track.

Since then, they have met twice more in third countries, in Malta and Thailand. This week marks their first talks in Beijing.

China's foreign ministry said this week that relations with the US remain at "a critical point". She noted that the two sides are talking about climate and other issues, but accused the US of continuing to take restrictive measures against China.

Canada announced on Monday that, like America, it will impose a 100% tariff on imports of electric vehicles made in China, after Mr Sullivan called for it during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his cabinet ministers. / Voa