Research
Special Projects
Biden Administration International Affairs Personnel Tracker
Jake Sullivan
National Security Advisor
On This Page
Jake Sullivan is President Biden’s National Security Advisor. He formerly served as Deputy Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor to the-Vice President Joe Biden in the Obama-Biden administration from 2013-2014. He served as the Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State and as Deputy Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from 2011-2013.
After leaving the Obama administration, Sullivan held a teaching post at Yale Law School, Dartmouth College, and the University of New Hampshire. He was also a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and co-founded and co-chaired the advisory board for National Security Action.
Views On China
Jake Sullivan acknowledges China as a competitor but rejects the idea that the competition between the United States and China would eventually lead to a Cold War scenario. He previously suggested encouraging China’s rise “in a manner consistent with an open, fair, rules-based, regional order.”
Sullivan has pushed the idea that in order to best confront issues with China, the U.S. must be in a position of strength. He outlined it as such:
Foreign policy is domestic policy and domestic policy is foreign policy…Right now, the most profound national security challenge facing the United States is…domestic renewal…We have to put ourselves in a position of strength to be able to face the challenges we deal with around the world.
Sullivan believes it necessary to confront China over fundamental issues such as defending democracy. In addition, Sullivan called for a focus on alliances to establish a “new democratic front” of like-minded democratic partners to develop a clear set of priorities on China’s rise. More recently, Sullivan has publicly characterized China as a “predatory” competitor whose “predatory practices” need to be guarded against at the multinational level.
Most Recent Actions
Archive
In His Own Words
- On December 17, speaking at a Council on Foreign Relations event, Sullivan spoke broadly on a myriad of issues surrounding the U.S.-China relationship. He outlined areas of continued contention in the security and economic aspects of the relationship and also pressed China on climate change indicating that:
the pressure will grow on China to come to the table with something fundamentally more ambitious than what they have put on the table so far. And I don’t say that in some kind of competitive way or challenging way or threatening way, just the reality is that the only way to solve this problem for China as well as for the rest of the world is for that country to step up more. There are other countries that will have to as well.
Media
- In response to Samsung announcing a new semiconductor production facility in Texas, Sullivan and NEC Director Brian Deese welcomed the development as a step forward in protecting supply chains and revitalizing domestic manufacturing. They indicated that the announcement was the result of sustained work by the administration, including engagement with Samsung and the President’s meeting with President Moon of the Republic of Korea in May where the two leaders announced they would facilitate mutual and complementary investments in semiconductors.
In His Own Words
- On November 11, Sullivan delivered a keynote speech to the Lowy Insitute in Sydney. When asked about the possibility of a new ‘Cold War’ between the United States and China, Sullivan said:
All of this talk of the United States and China going into a new cold war and we are on our way to conflict…we have the choice not to do that…We have the choice instead to move forward with what President Biden says is stiff competition, where we are going to compete vigorously across multiple dimensions, including economics and technology, where we are going to stand up for our values, but we also recognise China is going to be a factor in the international system for the forseeable future.
Media
- On October 25, Sullivan met virtually with Burmese NUG representatives Duwa Lashi La and Zin Mar Aung. He reiterated U.S. support for ASEAN efforts to hold the Burmese military regime to its obligations under the Five-Point Consensus.
- On October 18, Sullivan met with the Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Pandjaitan of Indonesia. Sullivan stressed the importance the Biden-Harris Administration places on the bilateral relationship with Indonesia, engagement throughout Southeast Asia, and efforts to promote a free and open Indo-Pacific.
- On October 13, Sullivan met with Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam of Singapore in Washington, DC to discuss “the importance of the U.S.-Singapore Strategic Partnership and reviewed opportunities to build on the momentum generated by Vice President Harris’s August trip to Singapore.”
- On October 12, Sullivan met with ROK National Security Advisor Suh Hoon to emphasize “the important role of the U.S.-ROK alliance as the linchpin of peace, prosperity and security in northeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific.”
- On October 6, Sullivan met with Yang Jiechi in Zurich, Switzerland, as a follow-up to the September 9 phone call between Biden and Xi to discuss the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition. Sullivan raised a number of areas where the U.S. has a concern with the PRC’s actions, including actions related to human rights, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Taiwan.
Media
- On September 30, 2021, Sullivan met with the French Ambassador “to begin a process of in-depth consultations on a range of strategic matters, in order to create the conditions for ensuring confidence and propose concrete measures toward common objectives.”
- On September 13, 2021, Sullivan spoke on the phone to Lithuania’s Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė where he reportedly lent his support to Lithuania against “attempted coercion from the People’s Republic of China.”
In His Own Words
- On August 17, 2021, Sullivan was asked during a press conference in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan how he would respond to Taiwanese fears that the U.S. would abandon the island in the face of a Chinese attack. Sullivan responded:
We gave 20 years of American blood, treasure, sweat, and tears in Afghanistan. We gave them every capacity, in terms of training and equipment, to stand up and fight for themselves. And at some point, it was the time for the United States to say that the Afghan people had to stand up for themselves.
Media
- On August 9, 2021, Sullivan spoke to Takeo Akiba, Secretary General of Japan’s National Security Secretariat, where they discussed a number of Asian security issues including the rise of China and the need for multilateral cooperation in the region to these ends vis-à-vis ASEAN and the Quad.
- On August 9, 2021, Sullivan had an exchange with Brazil’s President Bolsonaro where he raised concerns about Huawei’s role in the country’s 5G infrastructure as the company continues to face “major challenges to its semiconductor supply chain.”
- On August 2, 2021, Sullivan met with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi where they spoke of a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and “the importance of freedom of the seas and adherence to UNCLOS principles in the South China.”
In His Own Words
- On July 13, 2021, Sullivan attended the Global Emerging Technology Summit, hosted by the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, where he spoke about competition between democratic and authoritarian values in the digital revolution:
The first wave of the digital revolution promised that new technologies would favor democracy and human rights. The second wave saw an authoritarian counterrevolution…we failed to see that the seeds of an authoritarian resurgence had already been planted. Recognizing—indeed, fearing—that the digital revolution would be a democratizing force or could be a democratizing force, China began an ambitious project to make the internet work for autocracy…
China’s trajectory…was supported by an under-appreciation in the West and in the United States of the importance–-and the fragility–of our technological preeminence as well as by a reflexive and bipartisan allergy for many years, indeed for decades, of industrial policy of almost any stripe.
- On July 1, 2021, Sullivan had a phone call with the Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam, Phạm Bình Minh, where he “underscored the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to ASEAN centrality and ASEAN’s essential role in the Indo-Pacific architecture” as well as reiterating “the United States’ support for the 2016 arbitral tribunal award” on the South China Sea.
In His Own Words
- On June 20, 2021, Sullivan praised President Biden on Fox News Sunday for his diplomatic efforts at the G-7 which resulted in a statement calling on China to allow the transparent investigation of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic:
It is that diplomatic spadework – rallying the nations of the world, imposing political and diplomatic pressure on China, that is a core part of the effort we are undertaking to ultimately face China with a stark choice: Either they will allow, in a responsible way, investigators in to do the real work of figuring out where this came from, or they will face isolation in the international community,
- On June 17, 2021, during an on-the-record press call regarding President Biden’s trip to Europe, Sullivan mentioned China multiple times in the context of a “predatory” competitor:
We had NATO tackling China in its communiqué for the first time, truly taking the security challenge posed by China seriously, and also a tasking for a new strategic concept that would deal with China where the last Strategic Concept did not even mention China…
…the U.S. and the EU will be working together to protect jobs and protect technology in Europe and the United States against China’s predatory practices.
Sullivan also noted the likelihood of an engagement between Biden and Xi at the G20 Summit in October 2021.
[Biden] will look for opportunities to engage with President Xi going forward. We don’t have any particular plans at the moment, but I would note that both leaders are likely to be at the G20 in Italy in October.
Sullivan also commented on the renewed global interest in investigating the origins of the coronavirus, expressing his support for a renewed investigation.
And then some of them relate to very targeted issues like the COVID-19 origins investigation where I have personally, and we collectively, have been quite vocal about our view that there needs to be a second round to this investigation that truly gets to the heart of the matter, which is the original data and original information that is still being withheld by China.
Media
- On April 12, 2021, Jake Sullivan participated in a CEO summit on Semiconductor and Supply Chain Resilience at the White House where they discussed the pandemic and supply-related semiconductor shortage, identifying it as “a top and immediate priority for the President and his senior most advisors on economic and national security.” The administration emphasized transparency throughout the supply chain and increased investment into domestic infrastructure as short and long-term mitigators to the shortage.
- On April 2, 2021, Jake Sullivan, National Security Secretariat Secretary General Shigeru Kitamura of Japan, and National Security Office Director Suh Hoon of the Republic of Korea (ROK) released a Press Statement following their talks at the United States Naval Academy “to consult on the United States’ review of its North Korea policy and to discuss issues of common concern including Indo Pacific security.”
Media
- On March 31, 2021, Jake Sullivan spoke by phone with National Security Advisor Hermogenes Esperon of the Philippines. The two “shared concerns regarding the recent massing of People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia vessels at Whitsun Reef” and reaffirmed the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty in the South China Sea.
- Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with their Chinese counterparts, Director Yang and State Councilor Wang, in Anchorage, Alaska from March 18 – 19, 2021. The first day of this meeting was characterized by both sides firmly entrenching themselves and trading barbs.
In His Own Words
- On March 19, 2021, Sullivan characterized the outcome of the Anchorage meeting in synchronization with Secretary Blinken:
We had the opportunity to lay out our priorities and intentions, and to hear from the Chinese side their priorities and intentions…. We’ll continue to consult with allies and partners on the way forward and, of course, on issues ranging from Iran to Afghanistan through the normal diplomatic channels. We’ll continue to work with China going forward.
Although the official Quad Leaders’ Joint Statement published on March 12, 2021, did not discuss China by name, Jake Sullivan made it a point to do so during his subsequent press conference to indicate that China was a primary topic of discussion. He said:
The four leaders did discuss the challenge posed by China, and they made clear that none of them had any illusions about China.
He was quick to note that the meeting was not about China alone. Some experts could take as a sign that the four countries recognize that for the Quad to be successful, it must exist to do more than merely ‘contain’ China. However, he has made evident that the Quad’s joint commitments will have the dual effect of competing with China, such as the pledge made to “delivering up to 1 billion [COVID-19 vaccine] doses to ASEAN, the Indo-Pacific, and beyond by the end of 2022”, as well as the establishment of an Emergency Technology Working Group that would address cybersecurity threats and critical supply chains of semiconductors.
Media
- Within this call, the two agreed to work together on shared foreign policy priorities, including in regard to China and Russia. They also discussed the importance of partnership on common global challenges, including climate change.
In His Own Words
- Sullivan is a vocal critic of China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview in February 2021, he is quoted as saying:
We do not believe that China has made available sufficient original data into how this pandemic began to spread, both in China and then eventually around the world… And we believe that both the WHO and China should step up on this matter.
In His Own Words
- Foreign Affairs, “Competition Without Catastrophe: How America Can Both Challenge and Coexist With China”
- Foreign Policy, “China Has Two Paths to Global Domination”
- The Washington Post, “The Right Way to Play the China Card on North Korea”
- Foreign Policy, “Trump Has Set a Scary Strategic Precedent”
- Atlantic Council, “Adviser on Biden’s foreign policy: Start at Home and Repair Alliances”
Page Last Updated: January 11, 2022
*None of the personnel in this tracker are associated with the Institute for China-America Studies. All images used on this page are sourced from the official Biden-Harris transition website buildbackbetter.gov or the public domain.*
