Asia-Pacific

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden likely to meet by year’s end despite little progress in preparatory talks

Meetings involving US national security adviser and Chinese officials part of an effort to to reduce the temperature in the relationship

Chinese president Xi Jinping and US president Joe Biden in California, November 15th, 2023. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty
Denis Staunton's picture
Denis Staunton in Beijing
Sat Aug 31 2024 - 06:00

After 11 hours of meetings between United States national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese officials in Beijing this week, both sides made clear that they remained as far apart as ever on most issues.

But they made enough progress to arrange a phone call between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in the coming weeks and a likely meeting between the two presidents before the end of the year.

Sullivan’s visit to Beijing was the first by a White House national security adviser in eight years but it was the latest in a series of meetings with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi. And it follows a succession of visits from other senior administration officials, including treasury secretary Janet Yellen and commerce secretary Gina Raimondo.

“The relationship remains a competitive relationship. We need to responsibly manage that competition, and we’re doing that through this very detailed, painstaking, multiple rounds of diplomatic effort,” Sullivan told reporters in Beijing at the end of his trip.

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“It’s not to arrive at a certain end result where everything is just resolved. It’s rather to arrive on a stable basis so that each of us can stand up for our interests, we can stand up for our friends, we can defend our values, we can take the actions we feel we need to take in service of our national interests, but we can also work together to ensure that the relationship is managed responsibly.”

Most of Sullivan’s talks were with Wang, who is a senior figure in the Communist Party leadership as well as foreign minister. But he also met Xi and in a move seen as significant by diplomats on both sides, had talks with Gen Zhang Youxia, vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission.

[ Sullivan meets Xi as wide-ranging China-US talks near end in Beijing ]

Zhang, who has held his position since 2016, is among Xi’s most trusted military advisers and is perceived in Beijing as more influential than the defence minister. Sullivan’s meeting with him comes as the US and Chinese military have been stepping up their contacts with one another to try to avoid accidental clashes between their forces in the South China Sea.

A dispute between China and the Philippines over islands in the South China Sea has seen clashes between coast guard vessels in recent weeks. Washington has a mutual defence treaty with Manila and Sullivan said it could be triggered by attacks on Philippines coast guard vessels.

For China, the dialogue with Sullivan is part of an effort to restore some stability to the relationship with the US and to dial down the temperature on bilateral disputes, including over trade. But Beijing said it would not accept interference from Washington over Taiwan, democracy and human rights, China’s political system or its economic development.

Sullivan made clear that the US will continue to support Taiwan against any aggression from Beijing and will not stop raising human-rights issues in China. But he stressed that Biden wanted to manage the competition with China and avoid conflict, an approach he suggested that Kamala Harris would maintain if she were to win November’s presidential election.

“Vice-president Harris has been a central member of the Biden foreign policy team, a leading member, and has been part of the design and execution of the overall strategy in the Indo-Pacific and with respect to the responsible management of US-China relations,” he said.

“She shares President Biden’s view that responsibly managing this competition, so it doesn’t veer into conflict or confrontation, is essential. And she also shares the view that maintaining high-level, open lines of communication is the way that you can achieve that responsible management.”