By Alexandra Sharp
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at strained U.S.-China relations, political gridlock in France, and another Russian aerial attack on Ukraine.
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High-Level Talks
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (right) gestures to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan before talks at Yanqi Lake in Beijing on Aug. 27.Ng Han Guan/AFP via Getty Images
U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan traveled to Beijing on Tuesday to begin three days of talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. This is their fifth meeting in less than a year and a half, and it is the first official trip to China by a U.S. national security advisor since 2016. It is unclear whether Sullivan will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit.
Sullivan reportedly aims to continue the Biden administration’s work of maintaining communication between the two sides, and no major announcements are expected. However, the meeting could help lay the groundwork for a possible final summit between Xi and U.S. President Joe Biden before the latter leaves office in January; the two cabinet officials were key to organizing last November’s leaders’ talks in California. A final Xi-Biden summit could occur at the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Peru or the G-20 summit in Brazil, both of which will be held in November.
U.S. Republicans have “attacked the Biden administration’s China talks as a wasted effort—a performance of diplomacy without substance,” FP’s Lili Pike wrote in China Brief. But engagement has already borne some fruit—including on climate change and artificial intelligence regulation—and Sullivan indicated on Tuesday that Washington and Beijing hope to ensure that competition between the two great powers doesn’t veer into a larger conflict. “President Biden has been very clear in his conversations with President Xi that he is committed to managing this important relationship responsibly,” Sullivan told Wang before their talks began.
Among the top issues on Sullivan’s agenda will be Taiwan and the South China Sea. Beijing has repeatedly accused Washington of promoting Taiwanese independence by supplying the island with arms and allowing senior officials to meet, such as when then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taipei in August 2022. Taiwan is “the first and foremost red line that must not be crossed,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry warned on Sunday ahead of Sullivan’s trip.
Beijing’s claims over disputed areas of the South China Sea, such as the Second Thomas and Sabina shoals, will also likely feature in this week’s conversations. On Sunday and Monday, Chinese coast guard vessels and Philippine ships collided; Beijing and Manila blame each other. Washington has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, and on Tuesday, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said it was open to discussing whether the U.S. military should escort Philippine vessels in the South China Sea to prevent future Chinese attacks.
Sullivan will also seek to expand military-to-military talks with China from the theater command-level down to prevent regional conflicts from erupting. And Sullivan is likely to bring up China’s friendship with Russia. U.S. officials have previously warned China against supplying the Kremlin with dual-use technology that can be applied to the battlefield.
Also on the agenda, Sullivan and Wang are expected to discuss fentanyl production. The White House wants Beijing to do more to prevent the development and export of chemicals used to make fentanyl that is then manufactured in Mexico. Fentanyl is the leading cause of drug overdoses in the United States.
The two officials are also likely to address a set of new U.S. controls on exports to China. The restrictions, first announced in October 2022, aim to prevent Beijing from accessing advanced U.S.-made semiconductors that officials say could be used to threaten U.S. national security. However, Beijing accuses Washington of using the controls to unfairly stunt the country’s tech development.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Hung parliament. France’s Socialist and Green parties announced on Tuesday that they will not continue talks with French President Emmanuel Macron over who should be the country’s next prime minister. Lawmakers have been trapped in political gridlock since Macron’s ruling Renaissance party suffered major losses in last month’s snap parliamentary elections, which led Prime Minister Gabriel Attal to resign. Attal said he will act as Paris’s caretaker leader until someone is chosen to replace him.
The left-wing New Popular Front’s (NFP) surprise victory in early July left no party or bloc with an absolute majority in France’s National Assembly. Since then, Macron’s centrist coalition has struggled to form an alliance with its leftist rivals to help counter the far-right National Rally, which secured third place with its populist, anti-immigration platform.
On Monday, Macron set back weeks of negotiations by refusing to name a prime minister from the NFP coalition. “The institutional stability of our country means that this option should not be pursued,” he said, arguing that any left-wing government would be rejected by a no-confidence vote. The NFP had nominated 37-year-old economist Lucie Castets for the position. NFP leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed party called for mass protests next Saturday in response.
Aerial attacks. Russia launched a wave of missile and drone attacks across Ukraine on Tuesday, killing at least six people. The assault is Moscow’s second large-scale aerial attack this week; on Monday, Russian forces targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure with more than 200 strikes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed retaliation in a statement on Tuesday and urged Western nations to consider participating in joint air defense operations. He also said that a peace plan via dialogue, in which conditions concerning Kyiv’s now three-week incursion into Russia’s Kursk region will be involved, will be presented to U.S. presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
Zelensky has previously called on the United States and its allies to lift restrictions on Kyiv using Western-made long-range weapons to hit targets inside Russia. On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Washington that it is “playing with fire” if it considers removing these constraints, adding that a possible World War III could extend outside of Europe. Putin has threatened a larger regional war—and even the use of nuclear weapons—in the past.
Hostage rescued. Israeli forces rescued a Bedouin Israeli citizen being held hostage by Hamas in southern Gaza on Tuesday. Farhan al-Qadi, 52, was working in security for a packing factory in southern Israel’s Kibbutz Magen when Hamas militants kidnapped him during their Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Hospital staff said Qadi is in stable condition, though one of his cousins told the New York Times that he appeared to have lost weight and has told him that he spent much of his time in captivity in the dark with just his guards.
Qadi was the eighth hostage to be rescued alive by Israeli troops thus far and the first one to be reclaimed alive from inside Hamas’s tunnel network, which reportedly runs under large swaths of Gaza. Details on his rescue could not be publicized “due to considerations of the safety of our hostages, the security of our forces, and national security,” the Israeli military said.
News of Qadi’s freedom comes as hostage release and cease-fire talks in Cairo remain at an impasse. More than 100 hostages are believed to still be in captivity, though Israeli officials suspect that around a third of them are dead.
Odds and Ends
Britain’s oldest skydiver just doesn’t “do fear.” World War II veteran Manette Baillie broke the record for the United Kingdom’s oldest skydiver on her 102nd birthday on Sunday. Baillie was married to a military paratrooper and was inspired to try skydiving after hearing that a friend’s 85-year-old father had done it. She told the BBC that the key to a long and fulfilling life is surrounding yourself with community and friends. “And don’t forget to party,” she added.
Correction: Yesterday’s newsletter misstated which province the Pakistani region of Balochistan borders.
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