Details from U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan’s recent meetings in Beijing with senior Chinese officials have been scarce. But amid simmering tensions, the fact the meeting occurred at all is notable, says USIP’s Dean Cheng: “The point here, I suspect, is simply to have communications.”
U.S. Institute of Peace experts discuss the latest foreign policy issues from around the world in On Peace, a brief weekly collaboration with SiriusXM's POTUS Channel 124.
Transcript
Laura Coates: You may have missed this news of just last week when the U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan met with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, just on the 29th. And there were some big moments there to talk about and whether it indeed fleshed out, whether there's any tangibles or deliverables coming out of these discussions. We will talk now with Dean Cheng, the USIP's China program senior advisor. Good morning, Dean. How are you?
Dean Cheng: I'm good! How are you?
Laura Coates: I'm good. Thank you so much for joining us. This was a three-day trip where Sullivan met with the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, a Central Military Commission vice chairman as well, which is the first time they had a meeting to the U.S. official and a Chinese military figure in that role since 2018. Tell us, going into that trip, what were the expectations of these meetings for Sullivan?
Dean Cheng: Well, I think first off to note that this was the culmination of, apparently, a series of quiet, low visibility meetings between Sullivan and Wang Yi and other Chinese senior leaders. But the eventual outcome was one discussion about a lot of topics, such as military to military meetings, reestablishing those sorts of contacts, having talks about artificial intelligence and how the two states look at that issue, but primarily to lay the groundwork for a Xi Jinping/Joe Biden phone conversation.
Laura Coates: So, in terms of that conversation, do we know if anything has come out of the of the discussions that Sullivan had?
Dean Cheng: I don't believe that they have formally announced anything. What seems to have been reported out from these meetings is that they seem to have agreed on an eventual phone conversation, probably in December, interestingly, after the election. But probably not much sooner than that. Probably not before the election.
Laura Coates: Tell me the reason for that timeline. To travel so far, to have the culminating meetings only to result in a prospective phone call following the election - what was the point?
Dean Cheng: That's a very good question. And frankly, the reporting out on both sides has been kind of sparse. The Chinese noted in their press releases that the Chinese got to make several key messages clear to Jake Sullivan, that China expects to be treated as an equal, that China really wants the U.S. to stop, quote, suppressing China, limiting access to technology, limiting access for China to sell things like Huawei, 5g networks, etc. On the American side, the readout was that the U.S. had a chance to talk to Xi Jinping. The Chinese, you know, there hasn't been that much high-level contact. One point of emphasis, apparently, was the idea to reestablish military to military contacts. From the American perspective, it is really important to have the two sides' militaries talk to each other in order to try and minimize miscalculation, to make sure there are lines of communications open in the event something happens. Unfortunately, the prospect of something happening has been steadily escalating, and it wasn't that long, right, just about right after these meetings that we had an incident involving the Chinese and the Philippines. And this matters to us because the Philippines is a treaty ally in the United States.
Laura Coates: So, when you're looking at what could come from the actual phone call, and particularly following the election, I mean obviously President Biden is not running for re-election, and so whatever he may agree to, whatever he may discuss, whoever is the next president would not be particularly beholden necessarily to having to follow that and make that come to fruition. What does that tell you that it would be a post-election during essentially a lame duck session?
Dean Cheng: President Biden, by choosing not to run again, has already made clear his lame duck status. So, the point here, I suspect, is simply to have communications. From an American perspective, more talk is generally considered better talk. From the Chinese perspective, it's very different. Talking, especially if you keep asking for it, is a point of leverage. The Chinese are certainly not known for altruism. So insofar as any conversation occurs, the question is going to be, what are they going to demand simply for that conversation. And that is unclear. Again, given the tensions in the South China Sea, given the tensions over at the Taiwan Straits, the Chinese are almost certainly going to try and say, "Look, if you want to have a conversation, if you think it's so important, what will you give me with regards to your Taiwan policy, with regards to your South China Sea policy." With a lame duck president, that's almost certainly going to be an even bigger ask on their part, because they will, not unreasonably, be asking the question, "Why should we talk to you at all?"
Laura Coates: In terms of the Taiwan policy, you know, obviously this has been a point of a major point of contention for quite some time. When you're looking at what prospectively could be the policies, how are you evaluating [them]?
Dean Cheng: So, from the Chinese perspective, there are several things that the Chinese have consistently asked for. They've asked for the United States to stop selling arms to Taiwan. They have asked for the United States to point blank, say to Taiwan, "We will not support you if you declare independence." Ideally, they would like the United States to say, "We will stop supporting you period. China, it's up to you." I think, you know, President Biden has four times said that we will come to the defense of Taiwan. Period. His staff have often walked him back on that. But the larger point is that the U.S. has generally said we want a peaceful resolution to this situation. I think that what is most likely to emerge, especially in the course of the election itself, is the two candidates perhaps defining how they disagree with each other about what to do about Taiwan. Or what would really worry China, what if the two agree? What if Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both say we pretty much view Taiwan the same way. If that's true, the Chinese are really going to be in a little bit of quandary, because then there's almost nothing to choose from between these two candidates. Taiwan is that focal point for them. They want to know, what will the next president most likely pursue as a policy towards Taiwan.
Laura Coates: The likeliness, likelihood, excuse me, of the policies, obviously, not just from the president, but also what, what Congress might be influential at talking about. Tell me a little bit, though, why is Jake, I mean, the impact of this meeting between Jake Sullivan and a Chinese military figure in particular. Why was that so significant?
Dean Cheng: So, two things, one Zhang Youxia is one of the two vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission. That makes, he is one of the two most senior soldier people in uniform in the Chinese military. The two vice chairmen generally do not meet foreigners and certainly don't meet foreign civilians. Jake Sullivan is obviously very important, president's national security advisor. Doesn't matter. That's not somebody, as a civilian, that either of these vice chairmen typically meet. So, this is a major event, suggesting, at a minimum, that these talks were important. Or, that the Chinese wanted to get a very specific message across. And not surprisingly, neither side has really released a transcript or anything of those talks. But the other thing that's notable here is that the Chinese defense minister was replaced last December, in a basically surprise move, and his replacement, Admiral Dong Jun has not been elevated to the senior ranks the State Council, the government as a state counselor, or apparently to the Politburo, the Chinese Communist Party-political bureau which really runs things in China. That means that meeting the defense minister is meeting with a somewhat lower level official than you might think from the title.
And in China, it's always very important to know where somebody is in terms of their party rank, as opposed to simply their title. So, this may also have made, it certainly made the talks potentially more meaningful because you're meeting somebody who is politically in a position to enforce things. But it also underscores, again, how little we understand about the Chinese system. How is the defense minister a relatively minor official, and what does that say about how the Chinese military is managed? So, there's a lot here for Beijing watchers to sort of cogitate on. But in terms of bilateral relations, it certainly was an interesting opportunity to talk to the most senior Chinese military officer, one of the two most senior Chinese military officers to get messages across. And when they say, "We will have military to military communications," here is somebody who can actually make that happen on the Chinese side.
Laura Coates: Dean Chang USIP's China program senior advisor, thank you so much for keeping us current. We appreciate your time.
Dean Cheng: Thank you.