US officials are working to arrange a possible telephone call this summer between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), two people in Washington familiar with the plans said.
The people did not have more details on what the US would want to be the focus of the call, but top Biden administration officials have emphasized the importance of putting “guard rails” on the relationship with Beijing to prevent disagreements from escalating into crisis.
Taiwan, Ukraine and human rights are among the many sore points in US-China relations, and the two nations have been jockeying for greater influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“We want stability in the relationship — that takes connecting,” US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns said on Thursday at an event hosted by the Brookings Institution.
Asked about the state of the relationship between the two countries, he said: “Of course, our ultimate channel is the channel between our two presidents. So we’re conducting intensive diplomacy.”
One person familiar with planning said a potential call could come as soon as next month, but any in-person meeting of the two leaders would wait until after the Chinese Communist Party National Congress later this year.
Xi — who is seeking to secure a third term as China’s leader — has also halted international travel since COVID-19 emerged more than two years ago.
Asked about a potential meeting, Chinese embassy in the US spokesman Liu Pengyu (劉鵬宇) said in an e-mail that China and the US “have smooth communications channels,” but did not elaborate.
A spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council on Thursday said that the Biden administration continues to maintain open lines of communication to manage competition with China, but had no future calls or meetings to announce at this time.
A call would follow a lengthy meeting between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese Central Foreign Affairs Commission Director Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) in Luxembourg this week.
The US said that meeting “included candid, substantive, and productive discussion of a number of regional and global security issues, as well as key issues in US-China relations.”
Speaking at an event in Washington on Thursday, Sullivan laid out what US officials see as the cost of China coming “to dominate the world.”
“When you play out that world, it is a world that is darker and harsher for American families, and it’s one we need to stand against and in favor of a vision for the world that actually delivers a better life for people and that’s the core of what we’re trying to do every day through a turbulent and crisis-laden international landscape,” Sullivan said.
China has accused Washington of seeking to encircle it with a NATO-like system of alliances and of trying to recreate a new cold war.
Recent weeks have seen a flurry of US outreach to Asia, including by Biden, who traveled to South Korea and Japan last month, as well as US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and senior US Department of State officials.
Biden and Xi last spoke in a nearly two-hour-long video call on March 18, their first following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The US president at the time warned Xi of “consequences” should Beijing provide support for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.
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