Sullivan's China Visit Expected to Set Stage for Biden-Xi Final Meeting

WASHINGTON—U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met Tuesday in Beijing with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in an attempt to manage tensions between Washington and Beijing ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

Sullivan's visit, which ends on Thursday, also aims to set the stage for President Joe Biden to hold his final summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping before Biden leaves office in January, analysts say.

Before holding the closed-door talks, Wang told reporters that China-U.S. relations were "critical," of great importance to the world, but have taken "twists and turns." He said he hoped the relationship between the two countries would become healthy and stable.

Sullivan said the two sides would discuss areas of agreement and disagreement that "need to be managed effectively and substantively."

U.S. officials say the main purpose of Sullivan's visit is to maintain mutual communication that has been severely disrupted over trade tensions, rights concerns and Beijing's increasingly close relations with Moscow since its invasion of Ukraine.

At a press briefing last week, a senior administration official said on background that Sullivan and Wang are expected to spend about 10 to 12 hours over two days discussing bilateral, global, regional and cross-strait issues.

"It bears repeating that U.S. diplomacy and channels of communication do not indicate a change in approach to the PRC [People's Republic of China]. This is an intensely competitive relationship. We are committed to making the investments, strengthening our alliances and taking the common steps — common sense steps on tech and national security — that we need to take. We are committed to managing this competition responsibly, however, and prevent it from veering into conflict," the official said.

The official added that Sullivan would raise U.S. concerns about China's support for Russia's defense industrial base, the South China Sea and other global issues such as North Korea, the Middle East, Myanmar and the Taiwan Strait.

The visit is not expected to produce a major breakthrough, but media reports noted it could set the stage for Biden to hold his final summit with Xi before leaving office in January.

Although neither the Chinese Foreign Ministry nor the U.S. State Department has confirmed it, Biden and Xi could meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru from Nov. 10 to 16, or at the G20 summit in Brazil on Nov. 18 and 19.

With the U.S. presidential election on Nov. 5, Biden, who is not seeking reelection and is a "lame duck," has waning influence on U.S. policy. Nonetheless, Chinese leaders are interested in meeting the U.S. president, said Wesley Alexander Hill, lead analyst and international program manager at the International Tax and Investment Center.

"Because there is such an unusual bipartisan agreement and skepticism about China, I really wouldn't think that the lame-duck period is going to be a significant factor in terms of meeting with Biden or talking with Biden," Hill told VOA.

"Because with China, the theme to stress is continuity in terms of America's foreign policy. Even with Trump and his, let's say, very direct mannerisms and his hostility towards China, the Biden administration hasn't reversed course on the fundamentals of Trump's policies."

The senior administration official said at the press briefing last week that Sullivan’s trip shouldn't be associated too closely with the election.

"This meeting will be focused on the topics and the issues that we are dealing with now. There is a lot we can get done before the end of the year in terms of just managing the relationship," the official said.

Neysun Mahboubi, director of the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations at the University of Pennsylvania, told VOA that regardless of who becomes the next U.S. president, the last meeting between Biden and Xi will not be just a formality.

Mahboubi said Chinese leaders, elites and ordinary people are very interested in the U.S. presidential election but said they don't have a consensus on which candidate would be more helpful to U.S.-China relations.

"I'm sure that there's a sense that for China, the trade war was particularly damaging. There would be an understanding that [a] Trump presidency is likely to pursue that approach with even more vigor. On the other hand, the Biden administration has been very effective in invigorating allies, including in Europe, including in the Asia Pacific, in a way that the Trump administration really has not done," he said.

Last week, the United States imposed sweeping sanctions on nearly 400 individuals and companies — 42 of them Chinese — for helping Russia circumvent U.S. sanctions and contributing to Moscow's war on Ukraine.

China's Commerce Ministry on Sunday said the U.S. action "undermines international trade order and rules, obstructs normal international economic and trade exchanges, and affects the security and stability of global industrial and supply chains."