White House Official in Beijing: US and China Working to Avoid Conflict

(Patria) - The United States and China are working to ensure that competition between them does not escalate into conflict, a senior White House official said on Tuesday as the two sides began talks on a relationship that has been severely tested during President Joe Biden's tenure, AP reported.

Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, is meeting with Wang Yi, a senior foreign policy official for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, on the northern outskirts of Beijing.

"President Biden has been very clear in his conversations with President Xi that he is committed to responsibly managing this important relationship," Sullivan told Wang before the talks began.

The goal of his visit, which lasts until Thursday, is limited. He will try to maintain communication that has been interrupted for most of 2022 and 2023 and has only lasted a few months. No major announcements are expected, although Sullivan's meetings could lay the groundwork for a possible final summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping before Biden leaves office in January.

Wang, director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party, said the China-US relationship has gone through twists and turns in recent years.

"The key is to adhere to the overall direction of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and win-win cooperation."

According to Da Wei, an expert on American and international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, it is important for the two countries to avoid any crisis in the remaining months of the Biden administration, as this could set the tone for US-China relations with the next president.

The Biden administration has taken a tough stance on China, viewing it as a strategic competitor, limiting its companies' access to advanced technology, and confronting a growing power as it tries to exert influence in Taiwan and the South China Sea.

Already cold relations worsened after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022. Hopes for a thaw were dashed the following February when a Chinese spy balloon hovering over the US was shot down by the US military.

Sullivan has been Biden's point person for often unannounced talks with Wang, who is the foreign minister, as well as the ruling Communist Party's top foreign policy official.

Wang resigned as foreign minister when he took over the party post, a higher position, but returned about seven months later, in July 2023, after his successor was removed for undisclosed reasons.

At a meeting between Sullivan and Wang in Vienna in May 2023, the two countries launched a delicate process of putting relations back on track. Since then, they have met two more times in third countries, Malta and Thailand. This will be their first conversation in Beijing.