United States national security advisor Jake Sullivan during this three-day Beijing trip ended Thursday successfully secured a phone call between top leaders of China and the US.
The US and China welcomed ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication, including planning for a phone call between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming weeks, the White House said in a statement.
Both sides noted the importance of regular, ongoing military-to-military communications and planned to hold a theater commander telephone call in the near future, according to the statement, which was released after Sullivan met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing.
Before this Beijing meeting, Sullivan and Wang had met four times – in Vienna, Malta, Washington and Bangkok – over the past 16 months. If Biden and Xi have a phone call in September, it will probably be the last one before Biden steps down as US President in January.
Post-meeting statements issued by Beijing and Washington showed that both sides continue to disagree on Taiwan, Russia-Ukraine and South China Sea matters.
On Thursday, Sullivan met with Zhang Youxia, vice chairman of the China’s Central Military Commission, and Xi, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“China has always been committed to maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, but ‘Taiwan independence’ and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait are incompatible,” Zhang told Sullivan during their meeting.
“Resolutely opposing ‘Taiwan independence’ and promoting reunification is the mission and responsibility of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army,” he said. “The wanton provocations of ‘Taiwan independence’ forces must be countered.”
“The US should correct its strategic understanding of China, return to a rational and pragmatic China policy, truly respect China’s core interests, work with China to promote communication and exchanges between the two militaries, and jointly shoulder the responsibilities of a major power,” he added.
He said the US side must stop colluding with the Taiwan army, militarizing the island and spreading Taiwan-related misinformation.
According to the White House’s press release, Sullivan underscored the importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait during this meeting with Wang on Wednesday.
But according to a statement published by the China side, Sullivan told Wang that the US does not seek a new Cold War or a change of China’s system and that the revitalization of US alliances is not against China. He said the US does not support “Taiwan independence” or seek conflict with China.
Russian defense industry
During his meeting with Wang on Wednesday, Sullivan expressed concerns about China’s support for the Russian defense industrial base and its impact on European and transatlantic security.
He said the US is committed to defending its Indo-Pacific allies and expressed concern about China’s destabilizing actions against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the South China Sea.
He also said that the US will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced US technologies from being used to undermine its national security, without unduly limiting trade or investment.
On August 23, the US Department of the Treasury and the Department of State sanctioned 400 individuals and companies in Russia, Asia, Europe and the Middle East and accused them of providing products and services that enable Moscow to sustain its war effort in Ukraine and evade sanctions.
At the same time, the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) added 123 firms to its export control list. The targeted firms include 63 Russian firms and 42 Chinese firms, which are mostly based in Hong Kong and Guangdong province.
Some Chinese commentators said the US won’t be able to break China-Russian ties.
“In its press release, the US side once again slandered China for ‘supporting the Russian defense industry’ and discredited China’s normal rights protection and law enforcement activities in the South China Sea,” a Tianjin-based columnist called Lanni writes in an article published on Thursday. “It shows that the US will continue to attack China with these issues.”
The writer says Russian Senator Aleksey Pushkov had previously warned that Sullivan wanted to use its Beijing trip to break Sino-Russian ties and force China to stand with Western countries. The writer says such an effort is doomed to fail as Sino-Russian relations will continue to improve but not be affected by third parties.
‘Peaceful co-existence’
During his trip, Sullivan has been repeatedly reminded by Chinese officials that China is committed to achieving mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation with the US.
“When China and the US, two major countries, engage with each other, the numer one issue is to develop a right strategic perception,” Xi told Sullivan in their meeting on Thursday. “They need to first and foremost find a good answer to the overarching question: Are China and the United States rivals or partners?”
“China’s foreign policy is open and transparent and its strategic intentions are aboveboard, both of which have been highly consistent and stable,” he said. “China is focused on managing its own affairs well and will continue deepening reform comprehensively to further improve and develop the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics that suits China’s national conditions. China follows a path of peaceful development.”
Xi expressed the hope that the US will work with China to find the right way for both countries to “coexist in peace and achieve common development on this planet.”
Peaceful coexistence was originally a term developed and applied by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. It refers to the coexistence of Soviet’s communism and America’s capitalism in the world. In the 1980s, China extended its own peaceful coexistence concept to include all nations.
Bi Dianlong, a Chinese columnist specializing in Taiwan issues, says in an article published on Thursday that the peaceful coexistence of the US and China is now not only a matter of the Pacific Ocean, but also an important global topic.
He says that Washington desperately wants to stabilize Sino-US relations as it wants to discuss and negotiate with China about the situations in Taiwan, Ukraine, North Korea, the South China Sea and the Middle East.
Read: Chinese pundits like Walz pragmatism in US trade war
Follow Jeff Pao on X: @jeffpao3
The trip is a waste of time. The US will continue to poke the panda using Taiwan as a pawn. This won’t end until unification occurs which could be sooner than expected if the US keeps supporting Lai’s independence pathway.
China has to bite the bullet, take back Taiwan, and wear whatever commercial costs that the West will inflict on it. It’s not a bad time to do it, now that the West has its hands tied in Ukraine and Gaza. Sooner or later China has to do what it has to do.