With promises of calls between the countries’ presidents and senior military commanders, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan wrapped up a three-day visit to China on Thursday meant to show that Washington and Beijing can “responsibly manage” their intensifying geopolitical competition and prevent it from veering into conflict.
Yet strong rhetoric from Beijing on Taiwan as well as on a range of bilateral economic and security spats suggest that the rival superpowers continue to disagree on the most contentious issues, only months before the November U.S. presidential election pitting Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump.
Many insiders speculated that such talks could help lay the groundwork for a possible final meeting between current U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a follow-up to their San Francisco summit last November.
While plans for an in-person meeting were not confirmed, Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi agreed to a “leader-level call” in the coming weeks in what would be Biden and Xi’s second time speaking over the phone since their summit.
Sullivan and Wang also discussed the importance of “regular, ongoing military-to-military communications,” agreeing to hold calls between their military theater commanders “in the near future,” according to a White House readout.
While the two sides discussed a number of contentious issues, ranging from trade spats to the war in Ukraine, one particular topic was high on the agenda: Taiwan.
“Taiwan belongs to China and China will surely be unified,” Wang told Sullivan during his visit to Beijing — the first by a U.S. national security adviser since 2016.
Wang referred to the possible “independence" of the self-ruled island — which Beijing has vowed to unify with the mainland, by force if necessary — as “the biggest risk to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” calling on Washington to “stop arming” Taipei, abide by the “One China” principle and “support peaceful reunification.”
Sullivan reiterated Washington’s position that it adheres to the “One China Policy” and does not support the island’s independence, while underscoring the importance of maintaining “peace and stability” across the Taiwan Strait.
Wang also expressed concern about U.S. moves to beef up its military presence in the Indo-Pacific and rally allies to counterbalance China on security and economic issues.
U.S. efforts to curtail Chinese access to advanced tech, including semiconductors, were also criticized by Wang, with the top Chinese diplomat calling on Washington to stop politicizing trade issues.
“The United States should stop suppressing China in the fields of economy, trade and science and technology, and stop undermining China's legitimate interests,” Wang said. “Using ‘overcapacity’ as an excuse to engage in protectionism will only harm global green development and affect world economic growth.”
But the ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economies is only likely to worsen, experts warned, as both U.S. presidential candidates have pledged to maintain a tough stance on China, with Trump even threatening a blanket tariff of 60% or higher on Chinese imports.
Sullivan made it clear that Washington “will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine our national security,” while raising concerns about what he called “unfair” Chinese trade policies and “nonmarket economic practices.”
The national security adviser also criticized China’s provision of dual-use goods to Russia such as microchips, arguing that this amounts to supporting Moscow’s defense industrial base and is impacting European security as it continues to make incremental territorial gains in Ukraine.
The finger-pointing followed a report published Wednesday by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute stating that China has expanded its lead as the world’s top research nation, leading in 57, or nearly 90%, of the 64 categories examined by the think tank. These include emerging technologies such as quantum sensors, high-performance computing, gravitational sensors, space launch and advanced chip design and fabrication. The U.S. now ranks first in only seven categories.
Meanwhile, the top U.S. official also restated Washington’s position on the South China Sea, expressing concern about China’s “destabilizing actions against lawful Philippine maritime operations” in the strategic waterway.
Wang reacted by saying that Washington “must not use bilateral treaties as an excuse to undermine China's sovereignty and territorial integrity, nor should it support or condone the Philippines' actions of infringement."
This comes as a new flash point has emerged in the China-Philippine territorial disputes, with Chinese vessels preventing resupply missions for a Philippine Coast Guard ship that has kept a continuous presence since April at Sabina Shoal, a disputed South China Sea atoll located well within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Paparo said Tuesday that Washington would consider the "entirely reasonable option" of escorting Philippine vessels during resupply missions — a move that some fear would sharply escalate regional tensions.
“Beijing is concerned that Washington is considering using the Phillipines to start a proxy war,” said Einar Tangen, a senior fellow at the China-based Taihe Institute think tank.
While in Beijing, Sullivan also became the first U.S. national security adviser in eight years to hold talks with the vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission. Addressing several of the security issues between the two sides, the top U.S. official told Gen. Zhang Youxia that both countries "have a responsibility to prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation."
The latest meeting of the so-called strategic channel — the fourth between the two officials in just 16 months — is part of measures agreed upon by the countries’ leaders during a November 2022 summit in Bali to increase high-level dialogue and prevent ties from descending into dangerous territory.
“This visit, like previous visits between Biden and Xi administration officials, was primarily focused on expanding and maintaining diplomacy and communication channels, but in terms of economic and military policy, little is getting done here,” said Chase Blazek, Asia-Pacific analyst at U.S.-based geopolitics and intelligence firm RANE.
Zhang Baohui, a professor and international affairs expert at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University, said the main reason for the lack of deliverables is that the two sides have “no common ground on any of these major issues of contention,” including trade.
Washington “will not change its economic and tech policies toward China” and will “continue to push its allies to seek as much economic decoupling from Beijing as possible,” he said, noting that many in China believe that, for instance, Canada’s recent decision to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars was due to “U.S. pressure.”
Blazek pointed out that while Beijing believes U.S. economic restrictions are inherently illegitimate, Washington sees them as justified by national security concerns and China’s “nonmarket policies.”
Yet despite the lack of concrete deliverables, Sullivan’s visit was still seen as significant as it signaled the two sides’ willingness to maintain high-level exchanges.
“The visit was important for what I call ‘competition management,’” said Andrew Scobell, a distinguished fellow with the China program at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Just as alliance management is required to ensure allies can maintain healthy working relations, so “competition management” is necessary to manage relations between competitors or adversaries to avoid unintended escalation and unwanted conflict, he noted.
But while the 20-plus bilateral dialogue and communication mechanisms that have been established or resumed in recent months have helped keep the intensifying rivalry in check, they haven’t been enough to improve the increasingly frayed ties, with neither side willing to tackle their fundamental differences head on.
So why visit China now, so close to the U.S. election?
Besides talks on another Biden-Xi interaction, analysts say that Washington probably used the visit to assure Beijing that its China policy will not see any major shocks during the election campaign. Many in Beijing fear the election could incentivize both Democrats and Republicans to sharpen anti-China rhetoric to gain voter support.
That said, regardless of who wins, Beijing already views the upcoming U.S. election as a lose-lose proposition, given that both candidates are expected to stake out hawkish positions on China.
So, what’s next?
While keeping dialogue channels is not a “nothingburger,” it pales in comparison to actual policy compromises, Blazek said.
And with mutual distrust on the rise, analysts are skeptical that what some have termed “the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship” will improve anytime soon.
“Their trajectories are firmly set on rivalrous policy platforms for the foreseeable future, even if they keep open dialogue channels,” Blazek warned.
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