According to Xinhua News Agency, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on 6 September: According to the consensus reached by the Chinese and US heads of state on the telephone on September 10, yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission, will meet with SULLIVAN, assistant to the US president for national security affairs, in Zurich, Switzerland, upon agreement between China and the United States. The two sides will exchange views on China-US relations and related issues.
Just a day ago, us trade representative Dai Qi, in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Think Tank in Washington, formally elaborated on the White House's trade policy toward China, hoping that China and the United States can "have frank dialogue" on economic and trade cooperation and hope that the United States can "reconnect" with China.
↑On November 24, 2020, U.S. presidential election elect Joe Biden nominated Jack Sullivan as White House national security adviser. Image according to Oriental IC
The White House said in a relevant statement that this meeting is the first offline meeting between the two countries after the above-mentioned call between the Chinese and US leaders. Some analysts pointed out that the goal of this meeting is to rebuild communication channels and implement the consensus reached by the Chinese and US leaders in the phone call a month ago.
So, what is the origin of Biden's dispatch of his national security assistant Sullivan this time?
The "Young and the Old" Scholar: Politics and Science Eat Everything at a young age is heavily relied upon by the big guys
Jack Sullivan, 44, is the youngest national security adviser in the United States in 60 years. Everyone describes him as "young and old", saying that he has enough security for himself and is always polite and considerate to the people around him.
Sullivan came from a family of ordinary intellectuals in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and grew up as the "child of someone else's family" in the population. "Is there anything Jack isn't good at?" He's probably the worst driver in the world," said Lasker, Sullivan's best friend.
Sullivan graduated from Yale University in 1998 with a political science degree and received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University with outstanding results, and graduated from Oxford University with a master's degree in international relations in 2000. He then attended Yale Law School, where he received his J.D. in 2003.
After graduating from Yale Law School, Sullivan returned to Minneapolis to work at the Feige Law Firm. He then served as chief adviser to the state's Senator, Amy Klobcher, and began his first foray into politics. Because of senator Klobcher's success in the election, Klobcher recommended him to his friend Hillary Clinton, and Sullivan began a "hanging" political career.
In 2008, when Hillary Clinton first ran for president, Sullivan began working for him and gradually became one of Hillary's closest aides. With his debating expertise (second place at the 2000 Sydney World University Debate Championships), he was responsible for helping Hillary Prepare for the Senate Confirmation Hearing as Secretary of State, and the 2016 Presidential Debate with Donald Trump.
↑ Sullivan was one of Hillary's most trusted assistants.
During Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state, Sullivan became her deputy chief of staff and in 2011 became the youngest director of policy planning in the history of the U.S. State Department. During this time, he accompanied Hillary clinton to 112 countries and regions. In 2012, Sullivan and CIA Director William Burns held their first secret meetings with Iranian officials in Oman, culminating in a breakthrough nuclear deal reached in 2015. At the time, he was only 35 years old.
Philip Reines, a Former Hillary Communications Adviser who has worked with him, said: "The Secretary of State and the President believe he can lead negotiations on one of our most powerful opponents on the most intractable issues." You can't put him in a situation he can't control. "Even now, years later, Reines is still impressed by Sullivan." He was the only human being to have traveled to 112 countries with Hillary, and his ability to work was just too annoying. He said jokingly. Hillary also spoke highly of him: "[He] can make a deep, calm, and keen analysis of the problems facing our national security."
In 2012, Sullivan, who was less than 40 years old, was named one of the "50 Democrats Influencing U.S. Foreign Policy" by Foreign Policy magazine and was called "the most influential heavyweight in the U.S. diplomatic service."
After Hillary Clinton stepped down as secretary of state in 2013, Sullivan remained in the Obama administration as national security adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden. A former White House colleague described it as, "Sullivan is the toughest person I know of on [Iran]." A year later, however, he abruptly resigned and returned to Yale to teach.
In 2016, Sullivan returned to Hillary Clinton as a senior policy adviser to the campaign she ran again. After Hillary Clinton's defeat, Sullivan bid farewell to politics and returned to academia, where he conducted foreign and national security research at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Dartmouth College, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and published dozens of influential articles in Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and The Atlantic.
Biden's "man behind the scenes": "Single-mindedly dependent on him"
At the end of 2020, after winning the election, Biden invited Sullivan to serve as his national security adviser. The appointment immediately caused a stir, after all, the national security adviser was the president's chief think tank on security matters, and the well-known American strategist Kissinger held this position.
At the time, the Biden team wrote in their biographical description of Sullivan: "During his administration's time, Sullivan was the chief negotiator for the initial negotiations, paving the way for the Iran nuclear deal and playing a key role in U.S.-brokered negotiations that led to the 2012 Gaza ceasefire." He has also played a key role in the State Department and the White House's 'Asia-Pacific rebalancing' strategy. ”
↑ Sullivan answers questions from reporters at a White House press conference.
Sullivan's critics, however, did not speak highly of him. They point to Sullivan as at the heart of two long-term disasters in the United States — Hillary Clinton's loss to Trump in the 2016 election and the withdrawal crisis in Afghanistan.
A former colleague of Sullivan's said the two "crashes" had in common that Sullivan did not anticipate the worst. "He should have learned this lesson in 2016 that the worst could happen." Said the former colleague.
As the chaotic scenes of the final moments of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan shocked the world, Sullivan was thrust into the spotlight. Critics argue that as national security adviser, Sullivan is responsible for ensuring that all legitimate ideas are publicly presented in the White House Situations Office and that all situations are reviewed.
↑ Sullivan has become a central figure in the Biden administration.
But the White House has been strenuously defending Sullivan, saying no one in the situation chamber predicted kabul's collapse at such a rapid pace and stressing the national security adviser's role in coordinating the evacuation of 124,000 civilians, calling it the largest civilian airlift in U.S. history.
Foreign media reports say that since Sullivan took office for eight months, there has been a steady stream of voices demanding his resignation, and not just Republicans. Brett Bruhn, the Obama administration's director of global affairs, even wrote in an opinion piece in USA Today calling for a reshuffle of Biden's national security team starting with Sullivan.
Yet, despite the constant skepticism and criticism, Sullivan has become a central figure in the Biden administration.
On the afternoon of Aug. 30, when news came to the White House Oval Office that the last U.S. plane had left Afghan airspace, Biden invited Secretary of State Blinken and Sullivan, who is the national security adviser, to accompany him to a private restaurant to commemorate the important moment of ending America's longest war.
A senior U.S. government official said that at such an important moment, Biden wanted Sullivan to be present, which meant that he had truly become "his own person" in biden's team. Unlike Blinken, who has been with Biden since 2002, Sullivan worked under Biden for only 18 months before the 2020 presidential election. Until then, he had been Hillary's right-hand man.
"Over the past two years, I've seen him (Biden) turn to Jack (Sullivan) for advice on domestic and foreign policy. He had great respect for Jack's judgment and relied on him wholeheartedly. The senior official said. Biden's "middle-class diplomacy" after taking office adopted the same concept that Sullivan designed when he was doing research at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"Even though he may be one of the smartest people in this building, he's not the kind of guy who closes himself off. He is very interested in listening to other people's opinions. White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said. He revealed that Sullivan changed the nature of the president's daily briefing, the daily morning post of the intelligence community, and expanded the circle of participants by introducing more senior officials based on expertise.
Sullivan also has research on Asia-Pacific affairs. In 2019, he and The National Security Council's Commissioner for Asia, Kurt Campbell, predicted the shift in the Asia-Pacific region and the dialogue with China in an article titled "Competition Without Disaster."
Red Star News reporter Xu Huan
Edited by Zhang Xun
(Download Red Star News, there are prizes for the newspaper!) ）