U.S.-PRC summit brings progress on military communications, counternarcotics

FORUM Staff

Resumption of military-to-military communications, bilateral cooperation to tackle the scourge of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, and joint talks on the risks of artificial intelligence (AI) highlighted United States President Joe Biden’s much-anticipated summit with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping in California in mid-November 2023.

The leaders’ talks “were some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had,” President Biden said at a news conference. “Our meetings have always been candid and straightforward. We haven’t always agreed, but they’ve been straightforward. And today, built on the groundwork we laid over the past several months of high-level diplomacy between our teams, we’ve made some important progress, I believe.”

In addition to high-level military communications, the nations also will resume bilateral defense policy coordination talks and Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings. “Both sides are also resuming telephone conversations between theater commanders,” the White House said.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) quit bilateral military communication channels after a U.S. delegation in August 2022 visited Taiwan, the self-governed island that Beijing claims as its territory and threatens to annex by force. U.S. defense officials called for substantive conversations, citing rising concern over the potential for catastrophic miscalculations given the CCP’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Those include a spate of unsafe intercepts by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of aircraft and vessels operating lawfully in international airspace and waters.

“That’s how accidents happen: misunderstandings,” President Biden said.

The two leaders also announced law enforcement coordination on counternarcotics, including to stem the illicit flow of precursor chemicals from the PRC, the primary source for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the U.S. The synthetic opioid is the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 45, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.

The PRC’s foreign ministry said the summit — held on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in San Francisco — was “positive, comprehensive and constructive. It has charted the course for improving and developing China-U.S. relations.”

The foreign ministry noted the nations’ “broad common interests in a wide range of areas,” such as trade, agriculture, AI and climate change. There also was progress ahead of the summit, as the nations agreed to deepen cooperation to accelerate renewable energy deployment, cut methane emissions and reverse deforestation.

President Biden said he raised concerns with Xi, including Beijing’s detention of U.S. citizens, human rights abuses and coercion in the South China Sea. “I also stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

The PLA has staged destabilizing live-fire drills around the island of 24 million people in recent years, and its aircraft and vessels routinely cross the median line of the 180-kilometer-wide strait, which serves as an unofficial demarcation between Taiwan and the PRC. Just days after the APEC meetings, Taiwan officials said they once again had deployed assets to monitor PLA fighter jets and other aircraft that crossed the waterway’s midpoint.

A spokesman for Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said the democratically elected government “expresses its appreciation and sincere thanks to President Biden for again publicly declaring resolute U.S. support for the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” the island’s Central News Agency reported.

The summit — the first meeting between President Biden and Xi in a year — followed months of heightened tension punctuated by Beijing’s refusal to condemn Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the shooting down by a U.S. Air Force jet of a massive Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed military sites across the continental U.S.

President Biden said the U.S. “will continue to compete vigorously with the PRC. But we’ll manage that competition responsibly, so it doesn’t veer into conflict or accidental conflict.”

“I welcome the positive steps we’ve taken today, and it’s important for the world to see that we are implementing the approach in the best traditions of American diplomacy,” he said. “We’re talking to our competitors.”