A barrage of vague phrases combined with familiar demands and accusations: At first glance, the visit of Biden’s top security advisor, Jake Sullivan, to China does not seem to have produced any interesting results.
However, Christiane Kuehl’s closer look at the trip reveals: The US president is attempting to de-escalate the last few meters of his presidency and contain China, the greatest threat from the US perspective. Sullivan has excellent qualifications for this job.
Elsewhere, too, the powers that be are currently trying to set the course: China’s leadership plans to introduce new laws to anchor traditional role models more firmly in society. The idea is to slow down the dramatic aging of society brought about by the one-child policy.
Happy, traditional families have more children, or so the assumption goes. But this no longer works, writes Fabian Peltsch. Chinese women are skeptical of marriage precisely because they have to accept so many restrictions as wives. Reforms strengthening their rights would most likely result in more children than more complicated divorces and easier marriages.
It is no secret that Washington sees China – and not Russia – as the biggest security threat. Just how important an understanding with the People’s Republic is for Joe Biden in the last few meters of his presidency is now demonstrated by the fact that he sent his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to Beijing for the first time, and for three days at that. The goal: controlling the tense relations and preventing an escalation.
The core of Sullivan’s trip was the extended meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a lake near Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday, which some observers believe even attempted to set the stage for one final summit between Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping. Wang Zichen, who analyzes Chinese documents in his newsletter Pekingnology, believes that the two presidents will at least talk on the phone soon. The White House also spoke of a possible “leader-level call in the coming weeks.”
Ahead of the meeting, the US and China had both described it as “a new round of strategic communication.” It built on the decisions made at the summit between Biden and Xi in San Francisco in November 2023, which included the resumption of bilateral military dialogue and AI security cooperation. Both topics have now been discussed, as has cooperation in the fight against drugs.
The White House generally assessed the talks between Wang and Sullivan as “frank, substantial and constructive.” The transcripts reveal an effort to maintain reasonably stable relations and avoid confrontation despite all the conflicts.
Nevertheless, the usual divisions remain visible. Unsurprisingly, Wang Yi reiterated his familiar positions on Taiwan and the South China Sea. Equally unsurprisingly, Sullivan emphasized that the US “will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our national security,” making an end to the chip war very unlikely.
From Beijing’s point of view, Washington, above all, needs to step up and finally treat China as an equal. “Treating each other as equals is key to ensuring China-US interactions are smooth,” the Chinese transcript quotes Wang Yi as saying. “Conducting interactions based on the position of strength is not the right way for nations to engage.” Sullivan agreed that both sides should treat each other equally and that competition should be healthy and fair. However, such a fundamental issue can hardly be resolved in one meeting. So far, Washington has shown no discernible inclination to recognize China as an equal.
The fact that Sullivan and Wang Yi have already met four times – in Vienna, Malta, Washington and most recently in Bangkok in January – is beneficial for their meetings. Among other things, the two prepared the presidential summit in San Francisco. “This strategic channel of communication between the two has played an important role in responsibly managing competition and tensions,” the White House announced before Sullivan embarked on his trip. According to the White House statement, they typically spent ten to twelve hours discussing various issues. That is a long time, which once again demonstrates the unusual relationship between Wang and Sullivan.
This is why some Chinese observers saw Sullivan in a different role than Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other members of the Biden administration in the run-up to the trip. “For both China and the US, this trip is the most valuable visit for China diplomacy during Biden’s term. Sullivan is the ‘strategist’ of Biden’s foreign policy,” wrote commentator Lu Cen on a platform for US-China relations. Lu had noticed that the White House spoke more about cooperation before Sullivan’s trip than before other visits by US ministers to China, which Beijing usually perceives as very demanding.
The White House has mentioned that “China and the US have found some important areas where they can cooperate despite being in competition, and that they have found constructive ways to jointly address challenges that neither side can solve unilaterally,” Lu wrote.
Whether relations will take a turn for the better remains to be seen. But at least Washington announced after the meeting, for example, that Sullivan and Wang discussed “next steps to reduce the flow of illicit synthetic drugs, continue repatriation of undocumented migrants, and law enforcement cooperation.” They also emphasized the importance of tangible progress in the fight against the climate crisis. According to reports, the new US climate envoy, John Podesta, will travel to China soon.
Before Sullivan left on Thursday, he met with General Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission under President Xi Jinping. Such meetings are extremely rare. “Your proposal to meet with me shows your high regard for the military security sector and the relations between our two armies,” said General Zhang. Sullivan emphasized, “Given the state of the world and the need for us to responsibly manage the US-China relationship, I think this is a very important meeting.”
Again, the topics remained familiar. Among other things, Sullivan raised Washington’s concerns about China’s support for Russia’s arms industry and the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war. He also emphasized the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. According to Chinese sources, however, Zhang urged the USA to stop supplying Taiwan with weapons and stop spreading what China considers to be misrepresentations about the democratic island republic. It is not known whether there was a rapprochement in nuances. However, the military dialog in particular can be seen as progress in the tense situation in the Far East.
The Chinese government proposed a new bill this month to simplify marriage registration. Under the new law, couples can apply for marriage anywhere in the country using their passport. Previously, this required an official household registration, known as a hukou. This meant that people could only get married where they were registered.
If the law is adopted, the “30-day rule” already introduced in 2021 will also become part of the new package. This is a 30-day cooling-off period that begins after the official filing of a divorce. During this time, both parties are supposed to reflect and possibly revoke their divorce filing. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which submitted the proposal, the measure contributes to a “family-friendly society.” “Impulse” divorces should be able to be reversed without complications.
The public has until September 11 to give their opinion on the bill. It has already sparked heated discussions even before the deadline. Chinese men and women are discussing on social media channels that the measures will make it more difficult for women in particular to escape toxic and abusive relationships. “Why not ban divorce altogether?” one user commented ironically under a post on Weibo.
By promoting traditional family models, Beijing wants to counteract the declining birth rates, which reached a new record low of around nine million newborns in 2023. According to United Nations forecasts, China’s population could shrink from 1.4 billion to 800 million by 2100.
However, the aging population will push social systems and economic growth to their limits long before then. That is why State and Party leader Xi Jinping calls on the country’s officials to “foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture.” Some provinces have already introduced officially sponsored marriage fairs and marriage preparation courses.
Marriage as an institution has suffered dramatically in China in recent years. After peaking in 2013, the rate of marriages fell continuously until 2022. In 2023, it briefly rose again for the first time in nine years. However, this was due to the end of “zero-Covid”: Many people had postponed their wedding plans during the pandemic years. The general trend remains downward. The number of marriages registered nationwide was just under two million in the first quarter, a decrease of around 170,000 couples compared to the same period last year.
The government blames the decline on an unbalanced gender ratio due to the one-child policy, among other things. According to official data, China has 17.52 million more men between the ages of 20 and 40 than women. Chinese people are also getting married later and later: Census data shows that the average age of first marriage in China in 2010 was just under 26 for men and 24 for women. In 2020, just ten years later, it was around four years later for men and around three years for women.
One reason that the government wants to address less directly is the different values that young Chinese people hold today. Many no longer consider getting married as they mainly see the disadvantages. One is the high cost of marriage. Couples often spend millions of yuan to entertain relatives at the celebrations, which are still considered a status symbol in many families due to their opulence. Moreover, it is often considered difficult to find marriage if a man doesn’t already have a house, a car and other possessions.
“However, the downward trend in marriages in China is mainly driven by women, especially urban and educated women,” explains journalist and author Zhang Lijia to Table.Briefings. She has conducted surveys on the subject in China and is currently writing a book on the changing views of young Chinese women on marriage. Her research shows that Chinese women are much less interested in marriage than men. The reason: “Women potentially have much more to lose and much less to gain in a marriage,” says Zhang. In general, they take on more household and childcare responsibilities. And they are often disadvantaged in the event of a divorce.
Courts tend to drag out divorce applications. Decisions are often not in favor of women, explains Xin He, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong who has written about the discrimination of women in divorce cases in China. He noted that the courts often choose easy ways to settle divorce cases out of political interest in social stability, which can lead to trivialization of domestic violence and loss of custody of the children.
“Many women no longer see marriage as a necessary step in life or as an essential prerequisite for a happy life,” says author Zhang. She says that China must first and foremost strive for gender equality if anything is to change fundamentally. “In general, women are more willing to have children in a more equal society,” she believes. In her view, this also includes more direct financial incentives: “In some regions, local governments already offer cash to couples who marry early, but the amount is usually not enough,” says Zhang.
It calls for increased parental leave benefits, flexible working hours, subsidized childcare and cheaper housing and education. All of this would have a far more beneficial effect on declining birth rates than half-baked measures such as simply making it easier to get married.
A Hong Kong court has convicted the operator of the pro-democracy news platform Stand News and the two former editors, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, of sedition. Chung and Lam were arrested by the national security police in December 2021 and Stand News was shut down.
The verdict is based on the “Sedition Ordinance,” a colonial-era law passed in 1938. After not being applied for decades, it has been used against government opponents since 2020. The written statement explaining the verdict states that the publication “supported and promoted Hong Kong’s autonomy.” The platform had also become a tool to “slander and defame” the central government authorities in Beijing and the Hong Kong government. Chung and Lam face up to two years in prison.
After Beijing enacted a strict National Security Law in June 2020, the authorities have cracked down on the media in Hong Kong. The Stand News case is considered one of the most important, as is that of Apple Daily, another pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong forced to close in 2021. Hong Kong now only ranks 135th on the Reporters Without Borders organization’s World Press Freedom Index after long being considered a pioneer for press freedom in Asia.
Stand News was founded in 2014 to “protect Hong Kong’s fundamental values such as democracy, human rights, freedom, the rule of law and justice.” The portal gained particular recognition for its live coverage of the protests in 2019. The editorial team also consistently reported on the court cases against protestors. jul
On Thursday, it got very, very hot again in Fuyang in eastern China; night temperatures barely dropped to 30 degrees. These three elderly gentlemen are looking to cool off in the shade of a park on Lindai Road – with the help of their fans. At around the same time, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic published the information that the average life expectancy in China has now reached 78.6 years. In Germany, it is currently 78.2 years for men and 83 years for women.
A barrage of vague phrases combined with familiar demands and accusations: At first glance, the visit of Biden’s top security advisor, Jake Sullivan, to China does not seem to have produced any interesting results.
However, Christiane Kuehl’s closer look at the trip reveals: The US president is attempting to de-escalate the last few meters of his presidency and contain China, the greatest threat from the US perspective. Sullivan has excellent qualifications for this job.
Elsewhere, too, the powers that be are currently trying to set the course: China’s leadership plans to introduce new laws to anchor traditional role models more firmly in society. The idea is to slow down the dramatic aging of society brought about by the one-child policy.
Happy, traditional families have more children, or so the assumption goes. But this no longer works, writes Fabian Peltsch. Chinese women are skeptical of marriage precisely because they have to accept so many restrictions as wives. Reforms strengthening their rights would most likely result in more children than more complicated divorces and easier marriages.
It is no secret that Washington sees China – and not Russia – as the biggest security threat. Just how important an understanding with the People’s Republic is for Joe Biden in the last few meters of his presidency is now demonstrated by the fact that he sent his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to Beijing for the first time, and for three days at that. The goal: controlling the tense relations and preventing an escalation.
The core of Sullivan’s trip was the extended meeting with Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a lake near Beijing on Tuesday and Wednesday, which some observers believe even attempted to set the stage for one final summit between Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping. Wang Zichen, who analyzes Chinese documents in his newsletter Pekingnology, believes that the two presidents will at least talk on the phone soon. The White House also spoke of a possible “leader-level call in the coming weeks.”
Ahead of the meeting, the US and China had both described it as “a new round of strategic communication.” It built on the decisions made at the summit between Biden and Xi in San Francisco in November 2023, which included the resumption of bilateral military dialogue and AI security cooperation. Both topics have now been discussed, as has cooperation in the fight against drugs.
The White House generally assessed the talks between Wang and Sullivan as “frank, substantial and constructive.” The transcripts reveal an effort to maintain reasonably stable relations and avoid confrontation despite all the conflicts.
Nevertheless, the usual divisions remain visible. Unsurprisingly, Wang Yi reiterated his familiar positions on Taiwan and the South China Sea. Equally unsurprisingly, Sullivan emphasized that the US “will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our national security,” making an end to the chip war very unlikely.
From Beijing’s point of view, Washington, above all, needs to step up and finally treat China as an equal. “Treating each other as equals is key to ensuring China-US interactions are smooth,” the Chinese transcript quotes Wang Yi as saying. “Conducting interactions based on the position of strength is not the right way for nations to engage.” Sullivan agreed that both sides should treat each other equally and that competition should be healthy and fair. However, such a fundamental issue can hardly be resolved in one meeting. So far, Washington has shown no discernible inclination to recognize China as an equal.
The fact that Sullivan and Wang Yi have already met four times – in Vienna, Malta, Washington and most recently in Bangkok in January – is beneficial for their meetings. Among other things, the two prepared the presidential summit in San Francisco. “This strategic channel of communication between the two has played an important role in responsibly managing competition and tensions,” the White House announced before Sullivan embarked on his trip. According to the White House statement, they typically spent ten to twelve hours discussing various issues. That is a long time, which once again demonstrates the unusual relationship between Wang and Sullivan.
This is why some Chinese observers saw Sullivan in a different role than Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other members of the Biden administration in the run-up to the trip. “For both China and the US, this trip is the most valuable visit for China diplomacy during Biden’s term. Sullivan is the ‘strategist’ of Biden’s foreign policy,” wrote commentator Lu Cen on a platform for US-China relations. Lu had noticed that the White House spoke more about cooperation before Sullivan’s trip than before other visits by US ministers to China, which Beijing usually perceives as very demanding.
The White House has mentioned that “China and the US have found some important areas where they can cooperate despite being in competition, and that they have found constructive ways to jointly address challenges that neither side can solve unilaterally,” Lu wrote.
Whether relations will take a turn for the better remains to be seen. But at least Washington announced after the meeting, for example, that Sullivan and Wang discussed “next steps to reduce the flow of illicit synthetic drugs, continue repatriation of undocumented migrants, and law enforcement cooperation.” They also emphasized the importance of tangible progress in the fight against the climate crisis. According to reports, the new US climate envoy, John Podesta, will travel to China soon.
Before Sullivan left on Thursday, he met with General Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission under President Xi Jinping. Such meetings are extremely rare. “Your proposal to meet with me shows your high regard for the military security sector and the relations between our two armies,” said General Zhang. Sullivan emphasized, “Given the state of the world and the need for us to responsibly manage the US-China relationship, I think this is a very important meeting.”
Again, the topics remained familiar. Among other things, Sullivan raised Washington’s concerns about China’s support for Russia’s arms industry and the efforts to achieve a ceasefire in the Gaza war. He also emphasized the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. According to Chinese sources, however, Zhang urged the USA to stop supplying Taiwan with weapons and stop spreading what China considers to be misrepresentations about the democratic island republic. It is not known whether there was a rapprochement in nuances. However, the military dialog in particular can be seen as progress in the tense situation in the Far East.
The Chinese government proposed a new bill this month to simplify marriage registration. Under the new law, couples can apply for marriage anywhere in the country using their passport. Previously, this required an official household registration, known as a hukou. This meant that people could only get married where they were registered.
If the law is adopted, the “30-day rule” already introduced in 2021 will also become part of the new package. This is a 30-day cooling-off period that begins after the official filing of a divorce. During this time, both parties are supposed to reflect and possibly revoke their divorce filing. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which submitted the proposal, the measure contributes to a “family-friendly society.” “Impulse” divorces should be able to be reversed without complications.
The public has until September 11 to give their opinion on the bill. It has already sparked heated discussions even before the deadline. Chinese men and women are discussing on social media channels that the measures will make it more difficult for women in particular to escape toxic and abusive relationships. “Why not ban divorce altogether?” one user commented ironically under a post on Weibo.
By promoting traditional family models, Beijing wants to counteract the declining birth rates, which reached a new record low of around nine million newborns in 2023. According to United Nations forecasts, China’s population could shrink from 1.4 billion to 800 million by 2100.
However, the aging population will push social systems and economic growth to their limits long before then. That is why State and Party leader Xi Jinping calls on the country’s officials to “foster a new type of marriage and childbearing culture.” Some provinces have already introduced officially sponsored marriage fairs and marriage preparation courses.
Marriage as an institution has suffered dramatically in China in recent years. After peaking in 2013, the rate of marriages fell continuously until 2022. In 2023, it briefly rose again for the first time in nine years. However, this was due to the end of “zero-Covid”: Many people had postponed their wedding plans during the pandemic years. The general trend remains downward. The number of marriages registered nationwide was just under two million in the first quarter, a decrease of around 170,000 couples compared to the same period last year.
The government blames the decline on an unbalanced gender ratio due to the one-child policy, among other things. According to official data, China has 17.52 million more men between the ages of 20 and 40 than women. Chinese people are also getting married later and later: Census data shows that the average age of first marriage in China in 2010 was just under 26 for men and 24 for women. In 2020, just ten years later, it was around four years later for men and around three years for women.
One reason that the government wants to address less directly is the different values that young Chinese people hold today. Many no longer consider getting married as they mainly see the disadvantages. One is the high cost of marriage. Couples often spend millions of yuan to entertain relatives at the celebrations, which are still considered a status symbol in many families due to their opulence. Moreover, it is often considered difficult to find marriage if a man doesn’t already have a house, a car and other possessions.
“However, the downward trend in marriages in China is mainly driven by women, especially urban and educated women,” explains journalist and author Zhang Lijia to Table.Briefings. She has conducted surveys on the subject in China and is currently writing a book on the changing views of young Chinese women on marriage. Her research shows that Chinese women are much less interested in marriage than men. The reason: “Women potentially have much more to lose and much less to gain in a marriage,” says Zhang. In general, they take on more household and childcare responsibilities. And they are often disadvantaged in the event of a divorce.
Courts tend to drag out divorce applications. Decisions are often not in favor of women, explains Xin He, a law professor at the University of Hong Kong who has written about the discrimination of women in divorce cases in China. He noted that the courts often choose easy ways to settle divorce cases out of political interest in social stability, which can lead to trivialization of domestic violence and loss of custody of the children.
“Many women no longer see marriage as a necessary step in life or as an essential prerequisite for a happy life,” says author Zhang. She says that China must first and foremost strive for gender equality if anything is to change fundamentally. “In general, women are more willing to have children in a more equal society,” she believes. In her view, this also includes more direct financial incentives: “In some regions, local governments already offer cash to couples who marry early, but the amount is usually not enough,” says Zhang.
It calls for increased parental leave benefits, flexible working hours, subsidized childcare and cheaper housing and education. All of this would have a far more beneficial effect on declining birth rates than half-baked measures such as simply making it easier to get married.
A Hong Kong court has convicted the operator of the pro-democracy news platform Stand News and the two former editors, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, of sedition. Chung and Lam were arrested by the national security police in December 2021 and Stand News was shut down.
The verdict is based on the “Sedition Ordinance,” a colonial-era law passed in 1938. After not being applied for decades, it has been used against government opponents since 2020. The written statement explaining the verdict states that the publication “supported and promoted Hong Kong’s autonomy.” The platform had also become a tool to “slander and defame” the central government authorities in Beijing and the Hong Kong government. Chung and Lam face up to two years in prison.
After Beijing enacted a strict National Security Law in June 2020, the authorities have cracked down on the media in Hong Kong. The Stand News case is considered one of the most important, as is that of Apple Daily, another pro-democracy newspaper in Hong Kong forced to close in 2021. Hong Kong now only ranks 135th on the Reporters Without Borders organization’s World Press Freedom Index after long being considered a pioneer for press freedom in Asia.
Stand News was founded in 2014 to “protect Hong Kong’s fundamental values such as democracy, human rights, freedom, the rule of law and justice.” The portal gained particular recognition for its live coverage of the protests in 2019. The editorial team also consistently reported on the court cases against protestors. jul
On Thursday, it got very, very hot again in Fuyang in eastern China; night temperatures barely dropped to 30 degrees. These three elderly gentlemen are looking to cool off in the shade of a park on Lindai Road – with the help of their fans. At around the same time, the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic published the information that the average life expectancy in China has now reached 78.6 years. In Germany, it is currently 78.2 years for men and 83 years for women.
