Janice R. Andrews
NEW YORK — The US and China have started a set of high-stakes talks in Beijing to try to keep their competition from turning into open war. The goal is to stabilize one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world. Tensions have grown a lot during President Joe Biden’s term, which is why this effort is being launched now.
Sullivan is speaking with Wang Yi, a top foreign policy official for Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a beautiful lake area on the northern edge of Beijing. Sullivan is the U.S. National Security Advisor. The two-day meeting is supposed to be about keeping the lines of conversation open and finding common ground in a relationship that is getting worse.
“President Biden has made it very clear in his talks with President Xi that he is committed to handling this important relationship in a responsible way,” Sullivan said before the talks. The main goal of these talks, which will last until Thursday, is to keep the conversation going and keep ties that have been seriously tested over the past few years from getting worse.
There aren’t going to be any big announcements today, but a summit is still possible.
Even though no big progress is expected, Sullivan’s talks could pave the way for a meeting between Biden and Xi Jinping before Biden’s term ends in January. It would take a lot of political work to make things stable between the US and China. Relations between the two countries have been up and down a lot lately.
Wang Yi, who is also the head of the Communist Party’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, stressed the importance of respecting each other, living together peacefully, and working together to make everyone better off. “The key is to keep moving in the direction of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation,” Wang said, emphasizing how important it is to deal with disagreements in a healthy way.
Da Wei, an expert on U.S. and foreign relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, says that the main goal of this visit is not to make big changes, but to keep the peace that has been slowly restored over the past year. Da Wei said, “The goal of this visit is not to make new breakthroughs or progress. Instead, it is to keep the steady momentum of China-U.S. relations that has been building over the past year through strategic communication and to avoid new crises in the next few months.”
The relationship is at a crossroads.
China is seen as a strategic competitor by the Biden government, which has taken a strong stand against it. The U.S. has made it harder for Chinese companies to get modern technology and has spoken out against China’s attempts to gain power over Taiwan and control the South China Sea. This has caused ties between the two countries to slowly get worse.
Relations got even worse after Nancy Pelosi, who was Speaker of the House at the time, visited Taiwan in August 2022. Beijing found this very upsetting. In early 2023, tensions rose again when a supposed Chinese spy balloon wandered across the United States. The U.S. military shot it down, which made things even worse between the two countries.
Over the past year, Sullivan has held several secret talks with Wang Yi as part of his efforts to keep diplomatic lines open. Wang originally quit as foreign minister to take on a more high role within the Communist Party. He returned to his cabinet post in July 2023 after his replacement was removed for no clear reason.
The last time the two officials saw each other was in May 2023 in Vienna, where they began the slow process of getting back together. Since then, they’ve met twice more, this time in Malta and Thailand, both of which were neutral places. This week’s talks are their first public ones in Beijing. They are a cautious but important step toward a more open relationship.
Impacts on a Global and Regional Scale
The Foreign Ministry of China has said that ties between China and the United States are at a “critical juncture.” The ministry said that talks are still going on about climate change and other world problems, but it also said that the U.S. was still trying to “constrain and suppress China.”
Canada recently said that it would match the US’s 100% import tax on electric cars made in China. This made the relationship between the two countries even more complicated. Sullivan met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet and asked them to make their trade policies more like the U.S.’s. This is what they decided.
Moving Forward
As the talks go on, both sides will likely have to find a way to protect their national interests while also keeping the relationship from getting worse. The results of these talks could have a big impact on how ties between the U.S. and China develop in the coming months and could even set the tone for the future, based on who wins the next presidential election in Washington.
Even though the future is unclear, these talks in Beijing are an important step by both countries to keep the lines of communication open and avoid a fight. The world is paying close attention as two of the most powerful countries in the world try to work out their differences without starting a war.
