The White House has announced that National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan will travel to China to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi next week.

Sullivan’s visit to Beijing, slated to take place from August 27 to 29, 2024, marks the first visit by a US National Security Adviser since 2016.

Nonetheless, other senior US officials, including Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, have visited over the past two years.

A senior US administration official disclosed that Sullivan and Wang will discuss issues ranging from Taiwan to US-China military talks and the US fentanyl crisis.

According to the official, 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 added that 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.”

Moreover, the US official told reporters that the trip did not indicate any softening of President Joe Biden’s approach to China and that his administration would continue to believe that “this is an intensely competitive relationship”.

“We are committed to making the investments, strengthening our alliances and taking the common step on tech and national security that we need to take,” the official noted, referring to sweeping restrictions on US technology transfers to China imposed under Biden.

The official asserted, “We are committed to managing this competition responsibly, however, and preventing it from veering into conflict.”

China-US relations have been turbulent in recent years.

The two countries have sparred over their economic ambitions, and incidents like the US downing of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon last year further inflamed tensions.

The visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan in 2022, for instance, prompted a rebuke from Beijing, which considered her travel to be an endorsement of the island’s claims to sovereignty.

According to the Chinese state news agency, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Secretary of State Blinken in April that the two superpowers “should be partners rather than rivals” and should help each other succeed rather than hurt each other.

Blinken raised the issue of Chinese “support to the Russian defence industrial base”, and both the leaders agreed that Washington and Beijing still had issues to solve.

Sullivan’s Visit Not To Be Closely Associated With Elections

Sullivan’s visit comes within months of the US’s general election in November, in which Vice President Kamala Harris is running to succeed Joe Biden, the outgoing President.

The official said that the visit should not be associated too closely with the election.

The official stressed, “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.”
U.S official

If Harris wins, she is expected to continue to seek dialogue with China while also maintaining pressure.

She addressed China briefly in a speech accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for the presidency.

“I will make sure that we lead the world into the future on space and artificial intelligence — that America, not China, wins the competition for the 21st century and that we strengthen, not abdicate, our global leadership,” she told the Democratic National Convention.

Meanwhile, her Republican rival Donald Trump at least rhetorically has pledged to pursue a harder line with China, with some of his aides seeing a far-reaching global showdown ahead.