Sullivan to China next week, sources say, as US works to manage bilateral relationship

By CNN Newsource

Published August 23, 2024 6:53 AM

By Kayla Tausche and Samantha Waldenberg, CNN

(CNN) — President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will visit China next week, sources say, to meet with the country’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, as the United States works to keep the competition between the two countries from spilling into conflict.

Sullivan is expected to depart early in the week for a multi-day visit in which he’s expected to meet with several top Chinese officials. A senior administration official said the trip will take place from August 27 to August 29.

In recent years, Sullivan and Wang have structured meetings to take place regularly every six months to keep the lines of communication between the global superpowers open. The two officials, who have met five times, last met in Zurich in January. Since then, the Biden administration announced it would maintain a set of sweeping import tariffs in place on Chinese goods — with significant increases on categories like semiconductors and electrical vehicles expected to be implemented soon.

Axios first reported on Sullivan’s planned visit.

Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping last met in person when San Francisco hosted the APEC Summit in November 2023. At that meeting, CNN previously reported, Xi promised Biden that Beijing would not interfere in the 2024 US election. Biden and Xi also spoke in April in what the White House described as a one-hour-45-minute “candid and constructive” conversation on a range of issues on which the leaders agreed and disagreed. In that April call, Biden stressed the need to maintain “peace and stability” across the Taiwan Strait and he also raised his concerns over China’s support for Russia’s defense industry, the White House said.

Biden will attend a series of high-profile multilateral summits in the coming months at which he will be face-to-face with Xi, whom Biden has known for decades. Discussions for the two leaders to meet again are in their early stages, a US official tells CNN, and there is no certainty that an expanded bilateral meeting will take place in the twilight of Biden’s presidency.

Leaders of countries participating in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, a bloc known as APEC, will gather in Peru in mid-November. Leaders from the Group of 20 nations will gather in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the days after that.