US national security chief Sullivan to visit China next week

WASHINGTON: White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will meet with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in China next week to discuss issues ranging from Taiwan to US-China military talks and the US fentanyl crisis, a senior US administration official said on Friday (Aug 23).
In the Aug 27 to 29 talks in Beijing the two will also discuss China’s support for Russia’s defence industry, as well as the South China Sea, North Korea, the Middle East, Myanmar and artificial intelligence (AI), the official told reporters.
Sullivan’s trip comes ahead of the Nov 5 US presidential election that pits Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, the current vice president, against former president Donald Trump, in which US competition with China is a key foreign policy issue.
Both sides have sought to stabilise rocky ties in the past year since they sank to a historic low point after the US downed a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon.
Axios reported earlier that Sullivan and Wang are expected to lay the groundwork for a potential meeting with US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping later this year, to follow up on their California summit last November.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on whether such a meeting was being contemplated.
Sullivan has held regular talks with Wang, aiming as the administration says, to responsibly manage competition between the superpowers.
The official noted that the two last met in January in Bangkok, where they discussed ways to advance outcomes from the California summit, including the resumption of military-to-military talks, counter-narcotics cooperation and the risks posed by AI.
The official said the visit should not be associated too closely with the election. “That’s not the point. We’ve tried to do these Wang Yi-Jake Sullivan touchpoints about once a quarter.”
“(The election) is always in the background in any engagement we have with foreign officials concerned about what comes next or what the transition will be like, but this meeting will be focused on the topics and the issues that we are dealing with.
“There’s a lot we can get done before the end of the year in terms of just managing the relationship. I think that will be the focus.”
The official said Sullivan would push for a resumption of theatre-level military-to-military talks with China and was also likely to raise US concerns about China’s “increased military, diplomatic and economic pressure against Taiwan”.
He would be looking too to hear China’s assessment of the situation in the Middle East, where the two sides have different approaches but some shared concerns about instability.
“It really is about clearing up misperceptions and avoiding this competition from veering into conflict more than anything else,” the official said.
The official said there were areas where the sides could cooperate, such as the crisis of fentanyl flooding into the US.
“The fight against illicit precursor chemicals and fentanyl is … a constantly evolving trade, and so there are always things we need to push forward.”
Critics in Washington argue the Biden administration has not put enough pressure on Beijing over fentanyl-related substances, which are the leading cause US drug of overdoses.
China says it is cracking down on fentanyl and precursor chemicals and that the US crisis is a problem of demand, not supply.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Wang and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in April. That visit brought little progress on contentious issues, although there was some effort to ease the mood by emphasising educational and other cultural exchanges.
Blinken reiterated Washington’s concerns over Beijing’s actions toward Taiwan and its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine when he met Wang in Laos in July.