BEIJING — A top White House official travels to China for conversations about a relationship which has been severely tested during the term of US President Joe Biden.
Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, will be in China from Tuesday through Thursday, Biden’s point man for often unannounced talks with the Communist Party’s top foreign policy official as he tries to manage growing differences between the two powers.
The purpose of his trip is limited: to maintain communication in a relationship that broke down for most of a year in 2022-23 and took several months to rebuild. 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 leaves office in January.
Sullivan will conduct talks with Wang Yithe Minister of Foreign Affairs who also bears the higher title of Director of the Central Foreign Office of the Communist Party.
It is 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 hard line on China, viewing it as a strategic competitor and restricting Chinese companies’ access to advanced technology, while also confronting the rising power in its bid to exert influence over Taiwan and the South China Sea.
The already frosty relations were thrown into a deep freeze after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a prominent US congresswoman, visited Taiwan in August 2022Hopes for a restoration of ties were dashed the following February when a suspected Chinese spy balloon hovered over the United States before being shot down by the US military.
During a meeting between Sullivan and Wang in Vienna in May 2023 the two countries have started a delicate process to get relations back on track. Since then they have met twice more in a third country, Malta and Thailand. This week their first talks are in Beijing.
China’s Foreign Ministry said this week that relations with the US remain at a “critical point,” noting that the two sides are discussing climate and other issues, but accused the US of continuing to restrict and suppress China.