Jake Sullivan says US and China aiming to set up Joe Biden-Xi Jinping call ‘soon’

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White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US and China were aiming to set up a call “fairly soon” between President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Speaking at the UC San Diego Forum on US-China Relations at the Council on Foreign Relations, Sullivan said the November summit between the leaders in San Francisco had underscored the need for more exchanges.

Sullivan was speaking after returning from Thailand, where he met Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, using a backchannel that US officials said had been more effective over the past year than other avenues due to the lack of media attention.

He said he discussed the leader-level call during his two-day meeting with Wang. The backchannel meeting marked the latest attempt to stabilise US-China relations in the wake of the San Francisco summit.

Biden and Xi agreed in San Francisco to try to lower tensions after a range of thorny issues — from Chinese military activity around Taiwan to US export controls on advanced technology — drove the relationship to its lowest point since the countries established diplomatic relations more than four decades ago.

Sullivan said he had substantive talks with Wang and raised concerns about China’s support for Russian efforts to rebuild its defence industrial base, saying he “made no bones” about the issue.

He said he also told Wang that China had an “obligation” to use its leverage with Tehran to rein in the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who have been attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea. Sullivan said Beijing had an interest in trying to de-escalate the situation because of the importance of the Red Sea for trade between China and Europe.

In the latest sign of stabilisation since the San Francisco summit, US and Chinese officials are meeting in Beijing this week to discuss ways to stem the flow of chemicals from China that are used to make fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid that has sparked an epidemic in the US.

Sullivan said Beijing had taken some steps on counter-narcotics, but added that Washington needed to see continued progress on the issue, which is likely to feature in the US presidential election in November given the number of fentanyl-related deaths in recent years.

While the US and China have managed to reduce some surface tensions in recent months, they remain at odds over Taiwan.

Washington has warned Beijing not to overreact to the recent election of Lai Ching-te as Taiwan’s president, including taking assertive military actions around the country ahead of his inauguration in May.

China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory and sees Lai as a separatist, accuses the US of interfering in what it says are its internal affairs.

Sullivan noted that the Taiwanese election had passed without any serious incident but noted that there was no guarantee the situation would remain calm. He said the US needed to continue to invest in deterrence in addition to pursuing “detailed, dogged diplomacy” with Beijing.