Senior Chinese and US diplomats Wang Yi and Jake Sullivan meet in Bangkok, Thailand. Photo: Chinese Foreign Ministry
China will focus on raising serious concerns regarding the Taiwan question, addressing development rights and strategic security in discussions with the US during National Security Advisor Jack Sullivan's upcoming visit to Beijing, China's Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
Sullivan will be the first US national security advisor to visit China in eight years, and his trip comes less than three months before the US presidential election.
The visit, according to Chinese experts, symbolizes both countries' commitment to maintaining high-level official communication in this complex bilateral relationship and to assist both countries in managing their differences for the remaining time of the Biden administration.
Hot button issues
Sullivan's visit is at the invitation of Wang Yi, China's Foreign Minister, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Saturday.
Sullivan will visit China from Tuesday to Thursday.
Wang will have an in-depth exchange of views with Sullivan on China-US relations, sensitive subjects and major international and regional hot topics, according to a statement from the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs of China's Foreign Ministry, noting both sides have agreed to continue to make good use of this strategic communication channel.
China will focus on expressing serious concerns, clarifying firm positions, and making serious demands regarding the Taiwan question, China's development rights and strategic security, said the statement.
The US containment measures on China are mainly concentrated on those three aspects, if those issues are not properly addressed, China-US ties cannot be stabilized or improved, Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University, told the Global Times.
Although obstacles remain, Wu is optimistic that Sullivan's visit embodied both countries' commitment on keeping high-level exchanges, and plays a significant role in China-US relations during the remaining time of the Biden administration.
According to the foreign ministry statement, Wang's meeting with Sullivan in China is a key outcome of the consensus reached between the two heads of state in Bali in November 2022. Since that time, Wang and Sullivan have held three rounds of substantive and constructive strategic communications in Vienna, Malta and Bangkok, achieving positive results
During the US election cycle, candidates often hype China-related issues in order to appeal to voters. Sullivan's visit provides Beijing with an opportunity to caution Washington against allowing domestic politics to influence foreign policy decisions, and to effectively address differences in the next few months, Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.
China will likely use this visit to send a clear signal to the US that, whoever sits in the White House, any violation of China's red line will invoke Beijing's strong countermeasures, said Lü.
Needs for cooperation
China's Foreign Ministry also touched on China's stance on Russia-Ukraine crisis, South China Sea issue and Palestine-Israel conflicts on Sunday.
On the Russia-Ukraine crisis, China's position is open and straightforward, and it will continue to promote peace talks, push for political solutions, and engage in mediation diplomacy. The US should stop abusing unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction, and halt efforts to smear, slander, and coerce China. China will persist in taking strong and effective measures to protect its core interests and legitimate rights, according to the statement.
On South China Sea, the foreign ministry cautioned that countries outside of the region should not engage in actions that provoke confrontation and escalate tensions.
A senior US official told Reuters that Sullivan would be looking to hear China's assessment of the situation in the Middle East, where the two sides have different approaches but some shared concerns about instability. Sullivan's visit to Beijing reflected the urgency of the US to conduct cooperation with China at a time when Washington's hands are tied in the ongoing international conflicts, according to Chinese experts.
The Biden administration has been seeking to limit the fallout from the conflict in Gaza, now in its 11th month.
The conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to persist, despite the military aid provided by US-led Western countries to Ukraine and the imposition of a slew of sanctions on Russia in hopes of forcing Moscow into defeat.
To conduct pragmatic dialogue and cooperation with China is a fundamental goal of US diplomatic security strategy, no matter who takes the Oval Office, Zhu Feng, director of the Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University, told the Global Times on Sunday.
A senior official from Biden's administration briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity that the focus of the meeting between Wang and Sullivan is to maintain communications on the host of difficult issues and demonstrate that even amidst competition that we can find constructive ways to work with each other, per the Associated Press.
The US is clear that decoupling with China is impossible when it comes to promoting world peace and economic development, said Zhu. He noted that China's US policy remains unchanged, and now the onus falls on the US to work with China to establish a bilateral relationship that is responsible for both people and the world's peace and development.