Biden Wants Xi to Revive 'Priority' Issue of US-China Military Channels

Beijing suspended military communications channels with Washington last year to protest a controversial visit by then-Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, governed independently of mainland China, but regarded by the PRC as its province.

One of the key issues that President Joe Biden intends to discuss with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, is the importance of recommencing military communication channels between the US and China, which will help lower the risk of military misunderstanding.

“The Chinese have basically severed those communication links… President Biden would like to reestablish them. And he will look to this summit as an opportunity to try to advance the ball on that,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on national television.

After China suspended these channels last year over certain moves taken by Washington, specifically the visit of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Taiwan, which was decried by Beijing as a show of support for separatism, the matter has now become "a priority” for the Democratic POTUS. According to Sullivan, the Biden administration needs “those lines of communication so that there aren’t mistakes or miscalculations or miscommunication.”

The White House also underscored the importance of restoring a military hotline between the top defense officials of the two countries “all the way down to the tactical, operational level.”

Joe Biden's forthcoming one-on-one with the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, is scheduled to take place in San Francisco on November 15 on the margins of the APEC Leaders' Summit. The two presidents last met at the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022.

Earlier this month, reports from US media indicated that the reestablishment of mutual military communication channels could potentially be one of the outcomes of the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping at the APEC summit. China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi had reportedly proposed this during his visit to Washington from October 26-28.

In recent years, the US has been actively engaging with Taiwan – an island that Beijing considers a breakaway province. This engagement includes various activities, such as weapon sales. As part of this approach, former House Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan on August 2-3, 2022.

Taiwan has been governed independently of mainland China since 1949. Beijing regards the island as its province, whereas Taiwan maintains that it is an autonomous entity but stops short of declaring independence. Beijing opposes any official foreign contacts with Taipei and regards Chinese sovereignty over the island as indisputable. Although the US does not maintain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Washington has a representative office in Taipei and remains the island's biggest supplier of military hardware.

Beijing had strongly objected to Pelosi's trip. At the time, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stated that the visit dealt a severe blow to China-US relations.

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's sneaky visit to the Taiwan region, the US Senate's review of the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022, and remarks related to 'defending Taiwan', all of these have seriously challenged the three China-US joint communiqués, and gravely undermined the political foundation of China-US relations," Wang Yi said.

In response to the US move, China suspended military communications channels with Washington, including the Defense Policy Coordination Talks and the Maritime Military Communications Agreement, signed by the two sides in 1998 to enable ship and aircraft operators to communicate on a regular basis.

However, some lower-level military ties have been resumed recently, the US media reported. That said, Admiral John Aquilino, Commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, met with General Xu Qiling, deputy Joint Chief of Staff of the People’s Liberation Army, in Fiji this past August.

Furthermore, General Li Shangfu was removed from the post of Chinese Defense Minister in October. Li was slapped with US sanctions over Chinese imports of Russian arms in 2018, when he was serving as a general, and Beijing had demanded that these restrictions be removed as a precondition for restoring high-level communication between the militaries of the two countries.

It was earlier reported that the meeting between Biden and Xi would focus on the bilateral relationship between the United States and China, restoring “essential communications between the United States and China on the military side”, and showing the Chinese President once again Washington's commitment to the One China policy, with no support for Taiwan's independence.

The Ukraine conflict, the fresh flare-up of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and other hot-button issues will also be touched upon, according to reports.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman commented on the forthcoming meeting, saying that the two leaders would discuss the “strategic, overarching and fundamental importance in shaping China-US relations and major issues concerning world peace and development”.