Jake Sullivan hits back on reports Biden’s canceled plans is win for China

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan slammed the news media for reports that President Joe Biden’s cancellation of the Australian leg of his trip was a victory for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We believe that somehow this idea is the PRC [People’s Republic of China] sitting there happy and at ease about the situation is a helpful media narrative going into this journey, but it in no way reflects reality,” Sullivan, the president’s chief foreign policy adviser, told reporters working with the Air Force. One travels to Japan.

“It’s not for me to give you advice or pitch you about how you report things. But I think there is a degree of quite dramatic exaggeration in saying that postponing a visit to Australia and PNG speaks to the fundamentals of US diplomacy at the moment,” he noted.

Biden also canceled a historic visit to Papua New Guinea, where he would be the first US president to make an official visit, to return to the United States to deal with the debt crisis.

He was due to visit both countries after attending the G7 summit in Hiroshima.

Those two stopovers were designed to reaffirm US commitment to the Pacific as China’s political, military and economic power in the region increases. Its cancellation was seen as a foreign policy setback for Biden, who has focused heavily on the Pacific region and countered Jinping’s influence there.

Analysts said the president’s decision casts doubt on the credibility of the US in the Pacific island region, where Washington competes with Beijing for influence.

“It will reinforce lingering doubts about US endurance,” said Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at Johns Hopkins University. The New York Times. “And you can be sure that China will benefit from this – the message to the countries in the region will be, ‘You can’t count on a country that can’t even perform basic functions of governance.’

And Richard Maude of the Asia Society Policy Institute said the cancellation could be a setback for relations.

“The mantra in the region is all about showing up. Getting up is half the battle. China pops up all the time, so the optics aren’t great,” he told Reuters.

Xi has visited the region three times, including a 2018 visit to Papua New Guinea.

But the White House condemned such talk, arguing that countering China would be a major topic of the G7, where the leaders of France, the United States, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan meet.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also invited the leaders of the Quad – which is made up of Australia, India, the United States and Japan – to the G7. There is talk of plans to move the four leaders to the sidelines of the G7.

“The President felt it was critical that he be present at the G7 because this particular format is so central to getting alignment and convergence with key countries – including, by the way, the countries in the Quad, as both Australia and India are in Hiroshima. , and he will have an opportunity there to converse with them,’ Sullivan objected.

He also said Biden would hold a summit for Pacific Island leaders this year and visit Australia. Biden also invited Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for a state visit to the United States later this year.

Biden hosted a summit of Pacific Island leaders last year.

The Pacific Islands cover 40 million square miles of ocean, where vital shipping lanes and submarine cables connect the United States to Australia and Japan – two of its most important allies in the region.

But island leaders admit the US sees them as “fly over” countries.

And Biden’s change of plans brought back memories of 2013, then-President Barack Obama skipped a scheduled appearance at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting to address a Republican-initiated government shutdown.

Xi eventually dominated the event, declaring that “Asia Pacific cannot thrive without China.”

Albanese announced on Wednesday that he would cancel the Quad meeting scheduled in Sydney as Biden cannot attend. The leaders of those four Quad nations would discuss ways to counter China’s aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

Albanians told reporters in Australia that the four leaders tried to meet in Japan during the G7.

“At this stage, we don’t have time for that appointment,” he said on Wednesday. “This is a decision made overnight, our time, in the United States.”

In November, Biden met Xi at a G20 meeting in Bali, but tensions between Beijing and Washington have since risen.

There is talk of a call between Biden and Xi, but none have been scheduled as of yet.

Biden was also scheduled to address a joint meeting of the Australian Parliament during his stop in Australia. He would have been the first US president to speak there since Barack Obama nine years ago.

The president would also make a stopover in Papua New Guinea on his way from Japan to Australia. The decision to cancel that visit also comes as a blow, as Biden would have been the first sitting US president to officially tour the country.

Biden will arrive in Hiroshima, Japan, on Thursday for a meeting with G7 leaders.

The G7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

In addition, Japan invited Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, India, South Korea, Australia, the Comoros (currently holding the presidency of the African Union) and the Cook Islands (currently chairing the Pacific Islands Forum) to the G7 meeting.

But the US debt crisis will be lurking during the trip. The United States has never defaulted on its debt. When that happens, the economic devastation could be felt around the world.

The Treasury Department reiterated on Monday that they still believe the day the nation runs out of money to pay its bills could be as early as June 1.

Biden met with the Big Four congressional leaders — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Harkin Jeffries, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell — at the White House on Tuesday to try to move negotiations forward.

In announcing the change in his travel plans, he said dealing with the debt limit was just too important.

“There was an overwhelming consensus, I think at today’s meeting with congressional leaders, that defaulting on debt just isn’t an option. Our economy would go into recession,” Biden said.

And the White House pointed out that Russia and China would like to see the US default.

“There are countries like Russia and China that would like nothing more than for us to default so they can point the finger and say, ‘You see, the United States is not a stable, reliable partner,’ spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday. to reporters.

Republicans have said they will not vote to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agree to major cuts.

Biden will now have to spend much of his time at the G7 reassuring leaders that the United States is a reliable partner.

The war in Ukraine and support efforts there will also be discussed, as will climate change and Biden’s clean energy drive.