National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that United States President Joe Biden is planning to ask Chinese President Xi Jinping to restore military ties between the two nations.
The development comes as the military-to-military contacts between the two superpowers were severed last year. China in June rebuffed Secretary of State Antony Blinken's request to resume those contacts. However, Blinken noted that he repeatedly asked Beijing to do so.
US-China Military Ties
The Asian country formally severed regular armed forces contact in August 2022 following former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan. The visit was seen by China as giving official sanction to the existence of self-governing Taiwan, which Beijing has continued to claim is part of its territory.
Sullivan also said that getting China to agree to restore military contact has been one of the priorities of the Biden administration. He believes that having such is necessary to manage competition responsibly and to make sure that competition does not unnecessarily turn into conflict, as per the Western Journal.
The National Security Advisor noted that regular contacts can also help in avoiding "mistakes or miscalculations or miscommunication." However, some said that the development is seen as something that is representative of the Biden administration's approach to China, which is to say that they are working on addressing the issue but not really doing to call out the Marxist Leninist reality of the CCP.
Sullivan later said that he would not be getting ahead of any announcement that President Biden could make coming out of the meeting with Xi. However, he noted that the Democratic leader is determined to see the re-establishment of military-to-military ties because he believes in the U.S. national security interest.
Biden is expected to finally meet Xi on Wednesday in San Francisco during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. It would mark their second-ever face-to-face meeting and comes after calls for such talks.
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Biden-Xi Meeting
The National Security Advisor noted that restored military ties could take place at every level from senior leadership to the tactical operational level. He added that this could also happen "on the water and in the air in the Indo-Pacific." He said that the president would seek to "advance the ball" on military ties during his meeting with the Chinese president, according to Reuters.
On top of military ties, the Biden-Xi meeting is expected to cover a variety of global issues, including the Israel-Hamas war, the Russia-Ukraine war, North Korea's relations with Russia, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific in general, human rights, and many others.
U.S.-China relations have continued to deteriorate after Biden ordered military troops to shoot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon in February that flew over American airspace. Since then, American officials have visited Beijing and met with their counterparts in an attempt to rebuild the lost communications and trust, said Channel News Asia.
On the other hand, Chinese officials said that they were somewhat annoyed because of the sanctions that have been imposed on former Defense Minister Li Shangfu. These came after Beijing bought fighter jets and missile defense components from Russia.
