Sullivan in Beijing

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing last week, where the two sides agreed to initiate a call between the heads of state of both countries “in the coming weeks” and a video call at the military-theater-command level “at an appropriate time.”

Sullivan reiterated Washington’s position that it adheres to the “One China Policy” and does not support the island’s independence, while underscoring the importance of maintaining “peace and stability” across the Taiwan Strait.

U.S. efforts to curtail Chinese access to advanced tech, including semiconductors, were criticized by Wang, with the top Chinese diplomat calling on Washington to stop politicizing trade issues.

“The United States should stop suppressing China in the fields of economy, trade and science and technology, and stop undermining China's legitimate interests,” Wang said. “Using ‘overcapacity’ as an excuse to engage in protectionism will only harm global green development and affect world economic growth.”

But the ongoing trade war between the world’s two largest economies is only likely to worsen, experts warned, as both U.S. presidential candidates have pledged to maintain a tough stance on China, with Trump even threatening a blanket tariff of 60% or higher on Chinese imports.

Sullivan made it clear that Washington “will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine our national security,” while raising concerns about what he called “unfair” Chinese trade policies and “nonmarket economic practices.”

The national security adviser also criticized China’s provision of dual-use goods to Russia such as microchips, arguing that this amounts to supporting Moscow’s defense industrial base and is impacting European security as it continues to make incremental territorial gains in Ukraine.

Zhang Baohui, a professor and international affairs expert at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University, told Japan Times the main reason for the lack of deliverables is that the two sides have “no common ground on any of these major issues of contention,” including trade.

Washington “will not change its economic and tech policies toward China” and will “continue to push its allies to seek as much economic decoupling from Beijing as possible,” he said, noting that many in China believe that, for instance, Canada’s recent decision to impose a 100% tariff on Chinese electric cars was due to “U.S. pressure.”