Joe Biden Wants To Push China To Resume Military Ties With US, Says White House Official

Days before US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday that Joe Biden wants to restore military ties with China. In an interview to CBS, Sullivan said, “The president is determined to see the re-establishment of military-to-military ties because he believes it’s in the U.S. national security interest”. “Face the Nation.” “We need those lines of communication so that there aren’t mistakes, miscalculations, or miscommunications,” Sullivan stated.

Sullivan noted that the restoration of military ties could take place at all levels– from the senior leadership to the tactical and operational level, as well as “on the water and in the air in the Indo-Pacific.”

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union”,  Sullivan said that Biden would seek to “advance the ball” on military ties during his meeting with Xi, but declined to provide further details.

“The Chinese have basically severed those communication links. President Biden would like to re-establish that,” Sullivan said. “This is a top agenda item.”

The US President will meet his Chinese counterpart in person for the first time in a year on Wednesday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco. This meeting will be only the second in-person meeting between the two leaders since Biden took office in January 2021.

The Biden-Xi meeting is likely to cover several issues of global concern, from the Israel-Hamas war to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s ties with Russia, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific, human rights, fentanyl production, artificial intelligence, as well as “fair” trade and economic relations, a senior U.S. official said, as reported by the news agency Reuters.

In February, relations between the two nations grew frosty after the U.S. president ordered the shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States.

However, top administration officials from the US government have since visited China and met with their counterparts in a bid to rebuild communications and trust.