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President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to speak by phone in the “coming weeks,” the White House said on Wednesday, following a high-level meeting between the U.S. and Chinese officials in Beijing.
The announcement came after two days of talks in Beijing between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top foreign policy official, Wang Yi, as part of a “strategic channel” set up to stabilize ties and allow for discussions on sensitive issues such as Taiwan.
Ahead of Sullivan’s meeting in Beijing, a U.S. official said the two leaders could meet again before Biden leaves office — an option that has become more feasible since Biden dropped out of the presidential race this year. The two could meet after the U.S. election in November at an APEC forum in Peru or at the G20 summit in Brazil.
Sullivan has met with Wang four times in Vienna, Malta, Washington and Bangkok since May 2023. The channel is being operated under a low profile to allow the two sides to discuss strategic issues uninterrupted.
The White House said the two sides held candid and constructive discussions in Beijing on bilateral, regional and global issues.
According to the paper, the two sides are planning a telephone conversation between Admiral Samuel Paparo, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and Chinese President Xi Jinping. In a meeting with President Biden last November, President Xi agreed to reopen the U.S.-China military communication channel that the Chinese government closed in 2022 after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan for the first time in 25 years.
The White House said officials discussed progress on agreements reached at the Biden-Xi summit — including China’s commitment to crack down on exports of raw materials used in the deadly opioid painkiller fentanyl — as well as the importance of taking “concrete steps to address the climate crisis.”
But Sullivan also stressed that the United States will continue to take steps “to prevent advanced American technologies from being used to undermine our national security, without unduly restricting trade or investment.”
According to the White House, Sullivan stressed the importance of “maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait” and expressed concern about China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base and “destabilizing actions against the Philippines’ lawful maritime activities in the South China Sea.”
Some experts believe Sullivan could meet with Xi on Thursday, given that Wang met with Biden during a visit to Washington last October ahead of the summit.
Chinese state media said Sullivan and Wang discussed “new exchanges between the leaders of the two countries in the near future.”
Xinhua quoted Wang as saying that Beijing wants world peace and urged the United States not to view China through the template of a “strong country that must be dominated.” Sullivan, via Xinhua, told China that the two countries can compete but can also cooperate.
According to Xinhua, Wang warned that Taiwan independence was “the greatest risk to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.
He said China would also defend its “sovereignty” over islands in the South China Sea and that the United States should not support Philippine “violations” in the area, where clashes have erupted over Manila’s attempts to resupply troops aboard a ship stranded on Second Thomas Shoal. An international tribunal has rejected Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
Sullivan met Thursday with Gen. Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, and said the U.S. recognized the progress made by the two sides “over the past 10 months in sustained and regular military-to-military communications.”
