China goes public with demands it made on Biden

FPI / June 23, 2022

The Biden administration has released few details on the June 13 meeting in Luxembourg between U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official Yang Jiechi.

Team Biden would not say much more than that Sullivan and Yang engaged in a conversation that was “candid, substantive and productive.”

Candid “is often diplomatic code for a harsh verbal exchange,” security correspondent Bill Gertz noted.

On the other hand, China, which analysts say increasingly views the Biden administration as weak and conciliatory, did not hold back in publicly stating the demands Yang made during his meeting with Sullivan.

Yang, who has been dubbed “Tiger Yang” for his virulent anti-U.S. positions, repeated Beijing’s demand that the United States will not seek to overthrow the communist system.

Chinese state media reported that Yang went even further, pressing the U.S. to change its policies to support Chinese goals.

The official party propaganda outlet Xinhua stated in its report on the meeting that Yang pressed Sullivan on a reported promise made by Joe Biden to Chinese supreme leader Xi Jinping that the United States “does not seek a new Cold War or aim to change China‘s system.”

Yang is a member of the political bureau of the CCP’s Central Committee and director of the panel’s foreign affairs commission.

“Both are party positions, reflecting the fact that under Xi, the formal government has taken a back seat to the party in dealings with the United States, even as bilateral relations have grown increasingly tense in recent years,” Gertz noted in a report for the Washington Times.

“Communist Party leaders in recent years have adopted an almost paranoid fear of being overthrown and have accused the CIA and other U.S. institutions of seeking to subvert and ultimately defeat the communist system,” Gertz added.

Xinhua said Yang also pressed Sullivan on other reported pledges from Biden, such as that the United States will not oppose China through strengthened regional alliances or by backing Taiwan independence, and will not seek a direct conflict with China.

Free Press International