Top Biden adviser Jake Sullivan to visit China next week

National security adviser to be in Beijing from Tuesday to Thursday, seeking to improve ties between the US and China.

The White House has announced that National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan will travel to China to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi, in a new bid to manage tensions months before the United States elections.

Sullivan will visit Beijing from August 27 to 29, marking the first visit by a US national security adviser since 2016. Nonetheless, other senior US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have visited over the past two years.

A senior US official told reporters on Friday that the trip did not indicate any softening of President Joe Biden’s approach to China and that his administration would continue to believe that “this is an intensely competitive relationship”.

“We are committed to making the investments, strengthening our alliances and taking the common step on tech and national security that we need to take,” the official noted, referring to sweeping restrictions on US technology transfers to China imposed under Biden.

“We are committed to managing this competition responsibly, however, and preventing it from veering into conflict.”