Chinese Leader Xi Meets US National Security Adviser as the Two Powers Try to Avoid Conflict

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
TT
20

Chinese Leader Xi Meets US National Security Adviser as the Two Powers Try to Avoid Conflict

In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)
In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Li Xueren/Xinhua via AP)

Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday as the latter wound up a three-day visit with the stated aim of keeping communications open in a relationship that has become increasingly tense in recent years.
Sullivan, on his first trip to China as the main adviser to President Joe Biden on national security issues, earlier met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and a top general from the Central Military Commission, The Associated Press said.
Starting with a trade war that dates back to 2018, China and the United States have grown at odds over a range of issues, from global security, such as China’s claims over the South China Sea, to industrial policy on electric vehicle and solar panel manufacturing. Sullivan’s trip this week is meant to keep the tensions from spiraling into conflict.
“We believe that competition with China does not have to lead to conflict or confrontation. The key is responsible management through diplomacy,” he told reporters at a news conference shortly before leaving Beijing.
Both governments are eager to keep relations on an even keel ahead of a change in the US presidency in January. They said they remain committed to managing the relationship, following up on a meeting between Xi and Biden in San Francisco last November.
“While great changes have taken place in the two countries and in China-US relations, China’s commitment to the goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged,” Xi said.
“President Biden is committed to responsibly managing this consequential relationship to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict or confrontation, and to work together where our interests align,” Sullivan said.
The two countries agreed to work toward a phone call between Xi and Biden in the coming weeks, and Sullivan indicated the two could meet in person at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or Group of 20 summits later this year.
“The likelihood is they’ll both be there and if they are, it would only be natural for them to have the chance to sit down with one another,” he said.
Xi and Sullivan’s meeting also touched on the issues of American citizens detained in China, on Taiwan and also on the clashes between China and Philippines in the South China Sea.
The two also discussed China’s support for Russia, as a recent US assessment found that the country was exporting technology that Russia uses to manufacture missiles, tanks and other weaponry. They also discussed efforts to end the Ukraine war, but Sullivan said they did not make any progress on that issue.
Sullivan said an agreement to have a call between the military commanders in the Indo-Pacific region was a “very positive outcome” of his meetings and that they hope to deepen military-to-military communication so it can be passed on to whoever succeeds Biden as president.
The decades-old issues surrounding Taiwan have taken renewed prominence as the island’s ties with China become increasingly strained over Beijing's claims that Taiwan is part of China.
Taiwan, a self-governing island that split from communist China in 1949, has rejected Beijing’s demands that it accept unification with the mainland. The US is obligated under a domestic law to provide the island with sufficient hardware and technology to deter invasion.
Danny Russel, a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York and who served on the national security council in the Obama administration, said the meeting between Sullivan and Xi was particularly important because Sullivan was seen by the Chinese leadership as “a direct extension” of the US president and that Sullivan’s messaging was viewed as “coming straight from Biden.”
Sullivan also met one of China’s vice chairs of the Central Military Commission, Gen. Zhang Youxia, on Thursday morning — a rare meeting with a visiting US official.
Zhang said that reunification of Taiwan with the mainland is “the mission and responsibility” of the military, according to a statement from China’s Defense Ministry.
“China demands that the United States stop military collusion between the US and Taiwan, stop arming Taiwan and stop spreading false narratives about Taiwan,” the statement said, without elaborating on what the false narratives are.
Sullivan said “it is rare that we have the opportunity to have this kind of exchange” and underscored “the need for us to responsibly manage US-China relations.”
A White House statement said the two had “recognized the progress in sustained, regular military-military communications over the past 10 months” and noted an agreement announced the previous day to hold a telephone call between commanders at the theater-level in the near future. On Taiwan, the US statement said only that Sullivan had raised the importance of cross-Strait peace and stability.
China suspended communication between the two militaries and in a few other fields after a senior US lawmaker, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, visited Taiwan in August 2022. Talks were only gradually resumed more than a year later, after Xi and Biden met outside San Francisco in November.
A theater-level call would be between Adm. Samuel Paparo, who heads the US Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii, and his Chinese counterpart, said Russel, of the Asia Society Policy Institute.
“This theater command-level dialogue is critical for crisis prevention but something the Chinese military has been resisting,” said Russel, a former assistant US secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Paparo said this week that the US military is open to consultations about escorting Philippine ships in the South China Sea, where they have clashed with Chinese ships trying to block them from small islands and outcroppings that both countries claim.



China’s Top Diplomat to Visit Russia for Ukraine Talks 

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a press conference with France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Beijing on March 27, 2025. (AFP)
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a press conference with France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Beijing on March 27, 2025. (AFP)
TT
20

China’s Top Diplomat to Visit Russia for Ukraine Talks 

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a press conference with France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Beijing on March 27, 2025. (AFP)
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends a press conference with France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in Beijing on March 27, 2025. (AFP)

Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi will visit Russia next week for talks on issues including the resolution of the war in Ukraine, both countries said on Friday.

Beijing and Moscow have ramped up economic cooperation and diplomatic contacts in recent years and their strategic partnership has only grown closer since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.

China presents itself as a neutral party in that war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.

But it is a close political and economic ally of Russia and NATO members have branded Beijing a "decisive enabler" of the war -- which it has never condemned.

"At the invitation of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov... Foreign Minister Wang Yi will pay an official visit to Russia from March 31 to April 2," a foreign ministry spokesperson said.

The visit will see him meet with Russian leaders and hold talks with Lavrov, Beijing said.

"China is willing to take this visit as an opportunity to work with Russia to promote the implementation of the important consensus reached by the two heads of state," foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told a briefing.

He will also hold "in-depth communication on the development of China-Russia relations in the next stage and international and regional issues of common concern to both sides", he said.

Moscow's foreign ministry said the visit will see them discuss "bilateral relations, high-level contacts -- including the highest level -- as well as the most pressing issues on the international agenda, including prospects for resolving the crisis around Ukraine".

Last month Beijing hosted top Russian security official Sergei Shoigu, just days after President Xi Jinping spoke with his counterpart Vladimir Putin and hailed Moscow's "positive efforts to defuse" the Ukraine crisis.

China has said it welcomes all steps towards a ceasefire in the conflict.

But Beijing has faced consistent calls to do more to press Moscow to enter into negotiations and end its war in Ukraine.

In the Chinese capital on Thursday, France's top diplomat told Wang Yi that China "has a role to play in convincing Russia to come to the negotiating table with serious and good-faith proposals".

Moscow has said the leaders of Russia and China will visit each other to mark events commemorating the end of World War II.

Xi's visit will coincide with events marking victory in what Russia calls the "Great Patriotic War" on May 9.

Putin, in turn, will visit China at the end of August and beginning of September, Moscow said.