President Biden met with China’s top diplomats on Friday to prepare for Mr Biden’s planned meeting with President Xi Jinping next month, as relations between Washington and Beijing remain strained.
Amid cordial talks on cooperation between the United States and China, official Wang Yi ended his visit to Washington. During the three-day trip, the diplomat also met twice with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and with Mr. Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan. In total, the meetings lasted about 10 hours, U.S. officials said.
Mr. Wang’s trip was a reminder that even as the Biden administration struggles to deal with a new crisis in the Middle East, top officials in the Biden administration remain focused on their top foreign policy priority: managing relations with China.
That relationship has recently been marked by tensions over issues such as Chinese espionage and American restrictions on technology exports to China. And they were put to the test in February when a Chinese spy balloon crossed the United States before a U.S. warplane shot it down off the coast of North Carolina.
But Biden administration officials say cooperation with China on issues such as climate change and artificial intelligence remains crucial and that dialogue can minimize the risk of conflict over China’s territorial claim to the democratic island of Taiwan.
To that end, a parade of senior U.S. officials have traveled to China in recent months, including Mr. Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellin and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Mr. Sullivan has already met with Mr. Wang twice in recent months.
A brief statement from the White House on Friday highlighted cooperation themes. It said Mr. Biden told Mr. Wang that their respective countries must “manage competition in the relationship responsibly and maintain open channels of communication” and “work together to address global challenges.”
It wasn’t just about cooperation: A senior U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomacy, said Mr. Blinken was pressuring Mr. Wang on issues such as human rights in China’s Xinjiang province and Chinese military activities in China South China Sea and East China Sea as well as Americans imprisoned in China.
A summary of the three-hour meeting by Mr. Sullivan said the two officials also had “candid, constructive and substantive discussions” on issues such as the Israel-Hamas conflict, Ukraine and Taiwan.
The meetings come just two weeks before Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi are expected to meet on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific economic cooperation summit in San Francisco in mid-November. The two men last met in November last year on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
Ryan Hass, a former National Security Council director for China affairs in the Obama White House, said Mr. Wang’s visit would help set the agenda for the expected meeting between Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi next month.
“Restoring diplomatic connectivity will reduce the risk of miscalculation, create space to manage tensions in the relationship and ensure that Xi is forced to engage with America’s articulation of his goals and priorities as he forms his views on America’s intentions “Relationships form,” Hass said.
Although U.S. officials say they are preparing for a meeting between Mr. Xi and Mr. Biden, Beijing has not confirmed Mr. Xi’s attendance at the November summit – perhaps in part to avoid embarrassment in the event of a renewed crisis in relations between the USA and China should force a rejection. said Yun Sun, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center.
Chinese officials were furious when Mr. Blinken canceled a planned visit to Beijing at the last minute after the spy balloon caused a national stir. (Mr. Biden has said that the balloon was “off course” and that Mr. Xi was unaware of its trajectory. Mr. Blinken ultimately made the trip in June.)
Despite the shyness, Ms. Sun said Mr. Xi was likely eager for the meeting, hoping to show his people that he was a world leader of the highest standing – even as Beijing’s expectations for resolving conflicts such as the worsening U.S. Limits are low on the export of semiconductor chips to China to maintain America’s lead in artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies.
Biden officials, for their part, hope for a stable relationship through the 2024 elections. They also want Beijing’s help, among other things, in limiting the export of chemicals used to make fentanyl to Mexico and in curbing the continuation of the war in Ukraine through Russia.
Mr. Wang did not answer questions from reporters during his visit. In brief remarks before a meeting with Mr. Blinken, he said the goal of his talks in Washington was “to stabilize Sino-American relations.”
He seemed to suggest that the relationship had been disrupted by outspoken China hawks, saying that “some irritating voices will be heard from time to time.”
When that happens, he added, “China handles it calmly because we believe that what is right and what is wrong does not depend on who has the stronger arm or the louder voice.”
Mr. Wang was appointed director of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission in January. His title was expanded to include foreign minister in July following the mysterious disappearance of his predecessor in the post, Qin Gang, who held the post for just a few months before being removed without explanation.
Despite the hectic pace of high-level diplomacy, Ms. Sun said relations between the United States and China remained strained. “The question is how long it will stay that way. This is not called ‘improving’ relations,” she said. “The word you hear is stabilization – you don’t hear ‘improvement’ from anyone.”
That view was echoed by The Global Times, the Communist Party’s nationalist tabloid, which said in an article about Mr. Wang’s trip that “while the current interactions can be seen as a positive signal for China-U.S. relations,” the However, US policy towards China remains focused on “containment and suppression”.