President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan will meet China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi this week, the White House announced on Oct. 5.
The meeting will take place in Zurich, one of the stops on Sullivan’s trip to Europe that will also take him to Brussels and Paris. The announcement did not specify which date of the week the talks will take place.
“They will follow up on President Biden’s September 9 call with President Xi [Jinping] as we continue to seek to responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China,” the White House said in a statement. Sullivan will also brief European allies and partners on his meeting with Yang.
On Oct. 6, Taiwan’s Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng told the island’s Parliament that tension between Taipei and Beijing is now at its worst in 40 years. He also warned that China would be capable of launching a “full-scale” invasion against Taiwan by 2025.
China claims Taiwan as a part of its territory despite the island being a de facto independent country with its own military, constitution, and democratically-elected officials.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a short statement on the meeting, saying that Sullivan and Yang “will exchange views on China–U.S. relations and relevant issues.”
The Zurich meeting will come at a time when tensions are high between China and the United States, not only over Taiwan, but also on a number of other issues, including bilateral trade.
The bigger question surrounding the upcoming talks is whether Sullivan and Yang will be able to make some progress on issues concerning both nations, considering that their last face-to-face meeting in Alaska in March ended acrimoniously.
What’s more, China’s state-run media have attacked Sullivan over his recent remarks.
In response to Sullivan’s warning, China’s hawkish state-run media Global Times published an editorial, saying that Sullivan “has shown typical American arrogance of calling white black.” The article also questioned if the national security adviser had any “normal self-esteem,” and said his remarks were “as hilarious as a bad boy in an elementary school class.”
“I think the hope is that it will lead to a Biden–Xi Jinping meeting, which may have to be virtual,” Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Reuters.
There has been speculation that Biden and Xi could meet in person during the G-20 summit in Italy, which is scheduled to be held for two days starting on Oct. 30 in Rome.