A top White House official has arrived in China for talks on a relationship that has been severely tested during President Joe Biden’s term in office.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, has been Biden’s point person for often unannounced talks with the Communist Party’s top foreign policy official to try to manage the growing differences between Washington and Beijing.
On landing, Sullivan was greeted by Yang Tao, the Chinese foreign ministry’s chief for the North America and Oceanian department, and the U.S. ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns.
The goal of Sullivan’s visit, which lasts through Thursday, is limited — to try to maintain communication in a relationship that broke down for the better part of a year in 2022-23 and was only nursed back over several months.
No major announcements are expected, though Sullivan’s meetings could lay the groundwork for a possible final summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping before Biden steps down in January.
Sullivan will hold talks with Wang Yi, the foreign minister who also holds the more senior title of the director of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office.
It’s unusual to hold both positions. Wang had initially stepped down as foreign minister, but he returned about seven months later, in July 2023, after his successor was removed for reasons that have not been made public.
The Biden administration has taken a tough line on China, viewing it as a strategic competitor, restricting the access of its companies to advanced technology and confronting the rising power as it seeks to exert influence over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Already frosty relations went into a deep freeze after then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, a senior U.S. lawmaker, visited Taiwan in August 2022. Hopes of restoring ties were dashed the following February when a suspected Chinese spy balloon drifted across the United States before being shot down by the U.S. military.
At a meeting between Sullivan and Wang in Vienna in May 2023, the two countries launched a delicate process of putting relations back on track. Since than, they have met two more times in a third country, Malta and Thailand. This week will mark their first talks in Beijing.
China’s Foreign Ministry said this week that relations with the U.S. remain at “a critical juncture.” It noted that the two sides are talking on climate and other issues, but it accused the U.S. of continuing to constrain and suppress China.
