Jake Sullivan and Xi Jinping discussed issues including Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Russia’s war in Ukraine, according to the White House.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping on the third and final day of a rare visit to Beijing after holding talks with a senior Chinese military official on the same day.
Sullivan’s visit to Beijing is the first such trip by a U.S. national security adviser in eight years. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made similar visits earlier this year.
The trip was intended to continue President Joe Biden’s effort to maintain communications between the two sides and manage the bilateral relationship.
Sullivan and Xi welcomed “ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication,” the White House stated in a readout of the Aug. 29 meeting.
The pair discussed issues including Taiwan, the South China Sea, and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The White House said the two also discussed further implementation of their shared commitments, including counternarcotics, military-to-military communications, and artificial intelligence safety and risk. Biden and Xi first agreed on these commitments when they met on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in San Francisco in November 2023.
According to China’s state-run media, Xi told Sullivan that China would continue to handle its relationship with the United States based on “win-win cooperation” while it “firmly safeguards its sovereignty, security, and development interests.”
Feng Chongyi, professor of China studies at the University of Technology Sydney, dismissed the CCP leader’s heightened rhetoric, saying it was part of the regime’s propaganda efforts.
“Sullivan’s [meeting] actually offers Xi Jinping … a chance to spread propaganda. [Xi] wants to demonstrate his strength to the people of China and the world and convey the message ‘The East Wind will prevail over the West Wind,’” Feng told The Epoch Times after Sullivan’s meeting with Xi, referring to a slogan coined by Mao Zedong, the CCP’s first leader.
“China appears to win the latest round of negotiations, whether we are considering the spread of propaganda to domestic or global audiences.”
Some outside observers, however, saw Sullivan’s discussions with Xi as a positive sign amid the strained relations between Washington and Beijing.
“Meeting with Xi Jinping sends a crucial signal that top leaders between the United States and China can communicate with each other,” Chen Ping-kui, an expert in international relations and security at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, told The Epoch Times at the start of the Sullivan–Xi meeting.
“Engagement doesn’t guarantee achievement.”
Chen pointed to some recurring bilateral flashpoints, including the South China Sea and Taiwan, a self-ruled democracy viewed by the CCP as a breakaway province.
“We still need to observe if the United States and China could reach a consensus on these issues,” he said.
That viewpoint was echoed by Su Tzu-yun, a senior analyst at Taiwan’s government-funded Institute for National Defense and Security Research.
“When [Sullivan and Xi] came face to face, it was evident that they were at least keeping a lid on the possibility of an unexpected hot war [between China and the United States],” Su told The Epoch Times.
Additionally, according to Su, Xi’s willingness to meet with Sullivan could suggest that the CCP leader has a “more favorable view” of the Democratic Party’s chances in the upcoming elections.
Su said that Sino–U.S. relations would remain unchanged in the coming months before the inauguration of a new administration. Su also said that should Vice President Kamala Harris win the November presidential election, she would likely continue the Biden administration’s technology export restrictions against China.
Election Interference
Following the meeting with the CCP leader, Sullivan said he didn’t discuss the upcoming U.S. election with Xi or any other CCP officials.
However, he said he sent a clear message that meddling in the U.S. election is not acceptable.
“Every time I meet with Chinese officials, I raise the issue of election interference and laying down a clear marker that it’s unacceptable for any nation to interfere in the U.S. election, and this trip was no different,” Sullivan told reporters as he concluded his trip.
As the November vote nears, there are growing concerns that rival nations, particularly the Chinese communist regime, are attempting to influence U.S. elections by spreading disinformation and engaging in other online influence operations.
When Blinken traveled to China in April, he publicly acknowledged the CCP’s efforts to meddle in the elections, saying that Washington had observed “evidence of attempts to influence and arguably interfere” with the upcoming election process.
Biden told Xi not to interfere in the U.S. presidential election during their in-person meeting in Woodside, California, in November 2023. That message was reiterated during the two leaders’ phone call in April.
Biden–Xi Meeting
The White House confirmed on Aug. 28 that Washington and Beijing are working on arranging the two leaders’ next phone call after Sullivan held a lengthy meeting with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat.
Beijing’s accounts of the two senior officials’ exchanges didn’t mention the phone call. It stated that the two sides discussed a new round of engagement between the two countries’ leaders.
During the news conference, Sullivan said it is likely that both Biden and Xi will be at APEC and the G20 later this year.
“I don’t have any announcements to make on either President Biden’s travel or a potential meeting,“ he said. ”But 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.”
The G20 summit will be held on Nov. 18 and 19. The APEC Forum is scheduled to take place from Nov. 10 to 16.
Military-to-Military Communications
Sullivan said a positive outcome of his trip was that the two sides agreed to arrange a call between the heads of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and China’s Southern Theater Command soon.
“We are going to look for a deepening of the military-to-military communication so that we can pass that on to President Biden’s successor,” Sullivan said.
He said his talks with General Zhang Youxia allow them “to give impetus and momentum to those military-to-military lines of communication.”
Zhang is the vice chairman of the CCP’s Central Military Commission (CMC), a decision-making body of the country’s military that is chaired by Xi.
The last time that a U.S. national security adviser met with a CMC vice chairman in China was in 2016, when Susan Rice of the Obama administration met with Fan Changlong in China. Fan retired from the CMC in 2018.
Zhang told Sullivan that promoting what he called Taiwan’s reunification with China is the communist regime’s “mission and responsibility,” according to the readout released by China’s defense ministry.
Sullivan underscored the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, according to the White House.
The CCP claims Taiwan as part of its territory, even though the self-ruled island is a de facto independent nation with its own democratically elected government, constitution, currency, and military.
Taiwan has faced military threats and legal warfare from the Chinese regime. On Aug. 29, Taiwan’s defense ministry reported that it had detected 13 Chinese military aircraft, eight warships, and two official ships near the island in the previous 24 hours.
The Philippines has been protesting China’s “dangerous maneuvers” against its vessels and planes during routine patrol and resupply missions within its exclusive economic zones, as recognized by international law, to which China is also a signatory.
“We didn’t reach any specific agreements on the South China Sea,” Sullivan said at the news conference. “But we did indicate and reiterate our long-standing commitment to our ally and our long-standing commitment to the rule of law, freedom of navigation, and the free exercise of maritime rights in the South China Sea, and we’ll continue to do that.”
Luo Ya contributed to the report.