Intense Competition and Diplomacy: US Security Adviser Says US–China Leaders’ Meeting Still Possible

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks at a press briefing at the White House on April 24, 2023. (Andrew Harnik/AP Photo)

The Biden administration is still confident that a meeting will be secured between the U.S. president and Chinese leadership.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan, in an interview with CNN, denied that China and the United States were inevitably headed toward conflict.

“I sat in the room with President [Joe] Biden when he met with President Xi [Jinping] in Bali last year, and that was not my experience,” Sullivan said.

“The desire on both parts to put a floor under the relationship, to manage the competition responsibly, to ensure that competition does not become a conflict—we have intense competition; we also have intense diplomacy.

“At some point, we will see President Biden and President Xi come back together again. So as far as I’m concerned, there is nothing inconsistent with, on the one hand, competing vigorously in important domains on economics and technology and also ensuring that that competition does not veer into conflict or confrontation.

“We believe there is nothing inevitable about some kind of conflict or cold war between the U.S. and China.”

The move comes after Beijing declined an invitation for a meeting between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Communist Party’s Defense Minister Li Shangfu at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

“Overnight, the [People’s Republic of China (PRC)] informed the U.S. that they have declined our early May invitation for Secretary Austin to meet with PRC Minister of National Defense Li Shangfu in Singapore this week,” the Pentagon said in a statement to The Wall Street Journal.

There have been constant efforts from U.S. officials to secure a face-to-face meeting with Beijing, including a direct letter from Austin to Li.

Yet the United States and its democratic allies have continued this push for dialogue despite dealing with Beijing-backed foreign interference and reestablishing its military in the Indo-Pacific in preparation for a potential conflict over Taiwan.

“Open lines of communication with the People’s Republic of China are essential—especially between our defense and military leaders. For responsible defense leaders, the right time to talk is anytime, the right time to talk is everytime and the right time to talk is now,” Austin wrote on Twitter while in Singapore.

Behind Official Dialogue, Competition Underway

In February, the United States shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon. In April, the FBI arrested two individuals allegedly running a secret police station in New York to track down and silence Chinese dissidents living in the United States, prosecutors said.

The police station is believed to be one of more than 100 overseas stations operated by the Chinese regime in 53 countries, according to Safeguard Defenders, a Spain-based nonprofit.

At the end of last month, the Department of Justice charged two suspected Chinese agents for attempting to bribe officials to help undermine a Falun Gong-run entity in the United States.

John Chen, a 70-year-old U.S. citizen born in China, and Lin Feng, a Chinese citizen aged 43, attempted to “manipulate the IRS Whistleblower Program, through bribery and deceit” in an attempt to strip the entity of its tax-exempt status, according to court filings unsealed on May 26.

Chen and Feng, who reside in California’s Chino City and Los Angeles, respectively, were arrested from their residences on May 26, a spokesperson from the FBI Los Angeles Field Office told The Epoch Times.

The action marks the first prosecution by U.S. authorities to deter the Chinese regime from targeting Falun Gong—a meditative practice that follows the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance—in the United States.

The spiritual practice surged in popularity in China during the 1990s, and the country eventually had an estimated 100 million practitioners. However, the communist regime perceived that growth as a threat to its grip on power and, for the past 23 years, has instigated a severe campaign of persecution against the group.