U.S. National Security Adviser Visits China

Jake Sullivan has been welcomed to China on his first visit as US national security adviser. He will hold talks with Foreign Minister Wang Yi as the two countries try to stabilize relations.

Both Sullivan and Wang have already acknowledged a need to find common ground after disagreements between their nations.

In his remarks in front of journalists ahead of the closed-door meeting, Wang described China-U.S. ties as "critical", with a bearing on the world, and which have taken "twists and turns", adding that he hoped relations between the two countries would move to a condition of stable, healthy and sustainable development.

"I hope as always the communication will remain strategic but also substantive, of course at the same time constructive. I hope it will help China-U.S. relationship move forward towards the San Francisco vision and truly realize stable, healthy and sustainable development," said Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi.

The White House is trying not to explicitly link Sullivan's trip to the US presidential election. But it's hard to ignore the timing.

If Sullivan is able to lay the groundwork for a final Biden-Xi summit, his trip would tie up the ends of the US president's most consequential - and fraught - foreign policy relationship.

"I am looking forward to this afternoon, this evening and tomorrow that we will delve into a wide range of issues, including issues on which we agree on and those issues on where there are still differences that we need to manage effectively and substantially and it will be, I think, a very productive round of conversations," Sullivan  said.

Sullivan's trip is the first by a U.S. national security adviser since 2016. He has held regular talks with Wang with an eye to managing competition between the superpowers, and they last met in Bangkok in January.