The current visit by Biden’s top aide to China is meant to maintain open lines of communication, the White House said.
President Joe Biden and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping will speak in the “coming weeks,” the White House said, following two days of talks in China between national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
“Both sides welcomed ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication, including planning for a leader-level call in the coming weeks,” the White House stated in a
readout released on Aug. 28.
It is uncertain whether Sullivan and Wang have discussed a possible in-person meeting later this year between Biden and Xi. The two leaders last
met in person on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in San Francisco in November last year.
The two also discussed holding “a theater commander telephone call in the near future,” according to the U.S. readout.
While Sullivan reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to “defending its Indo-Pacific allies,” the White House stated, it does not appear that the Chinese regime will back down from its aggressive actions against Taiwan and the Philippines.
According to the Chinese readout, Wang said the United States should “stop arming Taiwan and support China’s peaceful unification” of the island and should not support the Philippines’s “infringement actions” in the South China Sea.
China’s communist regime has become increasingly aggressive toward its democratic neighbors. In recent weeks, Manila has protested the regime’s “dangerous maneuvers” against its
vessels and
planes during routine patrol or resupply missions.
Taiwan has been
facing military threats and
legal warfare from the Chinese regime, which seeks to bring the self-ruled island under its fold. On Aug. 28, Taiwan’s defense ministry
reported detecting 30 Chinese military aircraft, seven warships, and one official ship near the vicinity of the island in the past 24 hours.
On Aug. 27, Rear Adm. Andrew M. Sugimoto, deputy commander of the U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Area,
said Washington and Manila must “stand together” and “condemn the actions of aggressive individuals,” such as Chinese vessels “ramming or water cannoning unarmed vessels.”
Other topics discussed between Sullivan and Wang included North Korea, Myanmar (formerly Burma), the Middle East, China’s support for Russia’s defense industrial base, counternarcotics, and artificial intelligence safety and risk, according to the White House.
Biden–Xi
According to Dennis Wilder, a professor and senior fellow for the Initiative for U.S.–China Dialogue on Global Issues at Georgetown University, the success of Sullivan’s trip will be measured by whether he can arrange a meeting between Xi and Biden later this year.
“President Biden, before he leaves office, as part of his legacy, wants another meeting with President Xi, and there are opportunities on the sideline of the G20 meeting in South America for the two to meet,” Wilder said in an Aug. 26
interview with NTD, the sister media outlet of The Epoch Times.
“If there’s an announcement that they will meet, that there will be a summit, that will be a sign of success,” he added.
This year’s G20 summit
will be held on Nov. 18 and Nov. 19 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The two leaders had previously met on the sidelines of the G20 meetings in
Bali, Indonesia, in 2022. However, Xi didn’t attend last year’s
summit in India, which
disappointed Biden.
Another potential venue for the two leaders is in Lima, Peru, where the APEC Forum is scheduled to take place from Nov. 10 to Nov. 16.
Regardless of who the next U.S. president will be, Wilder said the Sino-U.S. competition won’t end.
“I don’t think anybody should have illusions that the era of strategic competition with the Chinese will end. That will continue to be a very much part of American foreign policy, whether it is President Trump or President Harris,” Wilder said.
Human Rights
During talks with Wang, Sullivan also “underscored the long-standing U.S. commitment to universal human rights and fundamental freedoms,” according to the U.S. readout.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, called on Sullivan to secure the release of U.S. citizen Mark Swidan from Chinese prison.
“As NSA Sullivan meets with Chinese officials, it is imperative that he pushes them in the strongest terms to release wrongfully detained Texan Mark Swidan,” Cruz
wrote in an Aug. 27 post on social media platform X.
Swidan, a Texas businessman, has been “wrongfully detained” in China since 2012, according to the State Department. He was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve in 2019 after being charged with drug-related crimes. A Chinese court
denied his appeal and upheld the ruling in April last year.
“The Senate has spoken unanimously on this issue and passed a resolution I authored saying the U.S. must use all of the tools at our disposal to bring Mark home,” Cruz wrote, referring to (
S.Res.23) that the Senate passed in May 2023.
Cruz added: “Hostage-taking is how Third World dictatorships act. It is long past time for them to free Mark and return him to his mother and family.”
Two other known U.S. citizens—
Kai Li and
David Lin—are currently arbitrarily detained in China.
Also, on Aug. 27, the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR) released a
statement saying that “many problematic laws and policies” still exist in China’s far-western region of Xinjiang.
“Allegations of human rights violations, including torture, need to be fully investigated,” OHCHR spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said in the press briefing. She added that the human rights office has continued to call on China “to take prompt steps to release all individuals arbitrarily deprived of their liberty.”
Nearly two years ago, the OHCHR
released a report saying that Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang could amount to “crimes against humanity.”
Both the
Biden and
Trump administrations have determined that the CCP’s repressive policies in Xinjiang are a form of genocide.
Reuters contributed to the report.
