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

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.

When he grows up, five-year-old Ahmad wants to be "stronger than Spider-Man".
But his dream clashes with a harsh reality -- the Jordanian boy has a serious disability, and major US aid cuts mean he will likely miss out on vital care.
Like him, millions of children around the world are suffering from the sweeping cuts ordered by US President Donald Trump.
All are grappling with hardship in one form or other: war, crime, global warming, poverty, disease and more.
Ahmad, who has a spinal malformation, cannot hold his torso upright and is paralyzed from the waist down.
The boy was receiving physiotherapy sessions from Handicap International "to strengthen his upper limbs and enable him, later on, to walk with crutches," said his father, Mahmud Abdulrahman, a 30-year-old day laborer.
Abdulrahman said the non-governmental organization was also due to provide orthotics and prosthetics to straighten Ahmad's lower limbs -- none of which he could afford on his meagre salary.
Now, none of that will happen.
The Wehdat Rehabilitation Center they attended in Jordan's capital Amman was one of the first victims of Trump's aid cuts.
More than 600 patients found themselves deprived of care overnight.
Prosthetics already specially designed for around 30 children, as well as wheelchairs, could not be delivered to them, on Washington's orders.
"The movement that was taught will be forgotten," said Dr Abdullah Hmoud, a physiotherapist who worked at the center, describing the potential losses as "catastrophic".
There is also emotional suffering.
When he realized he would no longer see his physiotherapist, "Ahmad stopped eating for three days. He didn't want to get up," said his father.
With the closure of his rehabilitation center, "I feel like they want to kill me," the boy said in a hushed voice.
Global fallout
Ahmad's story is one among many in a wave of horror accounts surfacing from the humanitarian sector since the United States said it was cutting 83 percent of its aid.
USAID -- which the Trump administration has dismantled -- had supported 42 percent of all aid distributed globally, with a $42.8 billion budget.
At a refugee camp in Bangladesh, home to a million Rohingya Muslims who fled persecution in Myanmar, half of them children, Save the Children has been forced to ration food.
The NGO fears desperate families could be pushed to hand over daughters to traffickers or send sons on dangerous sea crossings to Malaysia for work.
In Mozambique, Solidarites International had to shut down a program providing food and water to internally displaced people, including tens of thousands of children.
In Malawi, similar numbers will no longer receive free school meals, according to another NGO which requested anonymity for fear of US reprisals.
Without food, many children will drop out of school -- all the more galling, the NGO said, as millions of meals are reportedly left to rot in warehouses due to the US decision.
"It's like the rug is being pulled out from under their feet," said one staff member.
'Last lifelines'
Women and girls are often the first to lose out, with their education traditionally sacrificed first.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said it will have to "significantly reduce" aid to women and girls in Afghanistan because the US funds paid for many of the female staff who worked with them.
"The very last lifelines for many women and girls will be taken away," said Camilla Waszink, a director at the organization.
Malnutrition already affects 150 million children under five, and the numbers could surge.
"Millions of additional children will suffer stunted growth" and impaired brain capacity, said Kevin Goldberg, director of Solidarites International.
In another blow to children, Washington is expected to drastically reduce funding for vaccination programs in poor countries.
Sania Nishtar, CEO of the Vaccine Alliance, warned the cuts -- if confirmed -- could result in "an estimated 1.3 million children dying from vaccine-preventable diseases".

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