China intends to ask the US to cancel Trump’s policies at the Alaska meeting

U.S. officials say the meeting is a way to file U.S. complaints about Chinese actions, such as reducing its freedoms in Hong Kong, naval expansion in the South China Sea, economic pressure on U.S. allies, intellectual property violations and security raids. cybernetics. The United States also intends to identify Chinese officials on how the two countries could work together on issues such as climate change and global health.

China is coming up with a different agenda, which slightly overlaps with that of Washington, a sign of the distance between the two sides and how difficult it will be to repair the relationship.

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Communist Party’s governing body, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi intend to urge Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan to drop sanctions and restrictions imposed on Chinese government entities and individuals. Trump. people with knowledge of plans.

Chinese officials also plan to re-establish regular high-level meetings between the two sides and schedule a virtual summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Mr Biden in April during a global conference on climate change. The White House declined to comment on the prospect of such a meeting.

China’s overall agenda reflects a greater confidence in Beijing, which in the past has used high-level meetings, mainly to respond to US initiatives. “China feels the wind is blowing, the east is rising and the west is fading,” said Daniel Russel, a former Obama State Department official.

Measures that China wants to reverse include US sales limits to Chinese companies such as its telecommunications company Huawei Technologies Co. and chip manufacturer Semiconductor Manufacturing International Body.

; visa restrictions for Communist Party members, Chinese students and state media journalists; and the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston. Beijing has retaliated in kind, hitting American entities and individuals with similar sanctions.

If these restrictions are removed or relaxed, China would consider removing its own countermeasures, people with knowledge of Chinese plans said.

Mr Yang and Mr Wang intend to propose a new framework for establishing recurrent annual meetings between the two powers to resolve differences in the economic, trade, security and other fields. The so-called strategic dialogue format was implemented during the George W. Bush administration and continued until the Obama years, when Messrs. Blinken and Sullivan were high-ranking foreign policy officials.

President Donald Trump has abolished the mechanism because his advisers said China is using it to tie Americans into endless talks. The Biden administration has so far shown no interest in resuming talks.

A senior Biden administration official has lowered expectations that the Alaska meeting will lead to any agreement. The official described it as a unique meeting that did not envisage “the resumption of a certain dialogue mechanism or the beginning of a dialogue process”.

Beijing also cannot expect concrete results, said Mr Russel, a former Obama official who is now vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, a think tank. Rather, the Chinese “will try to better understand where Americans think the relationship will go and what might be possible,” he said.

So far, the Biden administration has continued some of Mr. Trump’s policies, including expanding sanctions on Chinese officials on Tuesday, which they say have undermined Hong Kong’s autonomy from Beijing.

On Wednesday, the US Department of Commerce issued summonses to several Chinese companies as part of the US effort to target technology and services that could threaten national security.

Tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese goods are not expected to be high on China’s agenda in Alaska, even though Foreign Minister Wang in a February speech called for the elimination of trade-related penalties.

China began contacting Biden’s aides late last year, although China’s foreign ministry said the suggestion for the Alaska meeting came from Washington. “The US side has proposed to hold this high-level strategic dialogue, which we believe is significant,” the ministry told The Wall Street Journal. He did not develop further, but said: “We hope that the two sides can have a sincere dialogue on issues of mutual interest.”

Chinese officials plan to propose the use of a virtual climate summit attended by global leaders on April 22, Earth Day, to schedule a meeting between Mr Xi and Mr Biden, people with knowledge of Beijing’s plans said. Both sides have indicated they are willing to work together to combat global warming and other climate issues, although the US is concerned that China will try to use the climate issue to move the US to other areas.

The two leaders spoke once since the US presidential election, a session that lasted two hours, according to Mr Biden.

Chinese officials point out that there is no room for compromise on sovereignty issues involving Hong Kong and Taiwan. Mr Blinken, who will stop in Alaska on his way back from a trip to Japan and South Korea this week, launched rescues on China from Tokyo on Thursday for both issues.

China also intends to propose that both countries create a “vaccine passport” to verify proof of immunization, according to people familiar with the plans. Chinese officials hope this can facilitate travel between the two countries.

It could also help China gain recognition for its home vaccines. In recent days, some Chinese embassies have said they will facilitate visas for foreigners who have received Chinese vaccines.

Beijing’s broad agenda for the meeting shows the Chinese leadership’s growing confidence in the party-state system. China’s economy withstood a trade war with the Trump administration and came back strong, aided by its early advances in controlling coronavirus infections. Mr. Xi, the strongest Chinese leader in decades, enjoys broad support among the Chinese public, Chinese officials say.

However, Beijing wants to overcome the turmoil in the US relationship, which has affected business and investor confidence in the world’s second-largest economy.

The Biden team also feels it is in a strong position after adopting a $ 1.9 trillion economic aid package and starting to work with allies in China and other economic issues, the official said. high rank of the Biden administration.

The symbolism of the meeting is important, said the official, who noted the importance of representing the US Secretary of State and the National Security Adviser. In the past, China has tried to capitalize on divisions between US officials, the official said.

Having Messrs. Blinken and Sullivan at the session will be clear, the official said, “it will not be daylight and that the games that China has played in the past, to divide us or try to divide us, simply I’m just not going to work here. “

The US side intends to address China’s economic pressure on Australia by reducing imports after Canberra called for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman this week accused tension of “Australia’s wrong words and deeds on issues of China’s sovereignty, security and development interests”

The session will help each side to better understand the other, said the senior Biden administration official. “It’s about communicating the areas where we intend to take steps and it’s about understanding where our Chinese interlocutors are,” the official said.

Write to Lingling Wei at [email protected] and Bob Davis at [email protected]