Research
Special Projects
U.S.-China Legislative and Executive Actions Directory (L.E.A.D.) Project
- Tracking Critical Developments in U.S.-China Relations, and On China, Within the Beltway -
Executive Actions Directory
The Executive Actions Directory tracks and analyzes major developments in U.S.-China relations and on China originating from within the executive branch, including but not limited to diplomatic meetings, formal speeches and press statements.
Each release also includes a detailed chronology listing major events, actions and happenings in U.S.-China relations on a triannual basis.
Chronology of U.S. - China Relations
This chronology was prepared by Jessica Martin, ICAS Research Associate.
July 1, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a conversation on U.S. foreign policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., during which he makes several references to the “challenges” posed by China and how the Biden-Harris administration is working to responsibly manage “what is arguably the most complex and consequential relationship of any in the world…from a position of strength” but with cooperation in mind, where possible. “I think China’s objectives are clear,” Blinken elaborates. “Over time, over the coming decades, they would like to be the leading country, the dominant country, in the international system militarily, economically, diplomatically…But they have a different vision, a different vision of what that future looks like. And so we disagree, and we’re going to compete very vigorously to make sure that we’re the ones who are effectively shaping that future…The complexity of it, the fact that our countries and so many of our societies are so intertwined, means that, again, there are going to be areas where we’re in vigorous competition. There are areas where we’re clearly going to be contesting. But there are also areas where we’re going to be cooperating because, again, it’s in our mutual interest.”
July 1, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions China-based members of a money laundering organization with criminal links to the Mexico-based Sinaloa Cartel as part of ongoing cooperative efforts with China on countering money laundering and other illicit finance issues, including those linked to the fentanyl trade.
July 1, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announces the guilty pleas of two men in Virginia of importing high-quality counterfeit identification cards from China to the U.S., which they would then sell online.
July 1, 2024: The U.S. Space Force publishes an article titled “Combat-Ready – Embracing a new US Space Force Generational Model” in which China is described as one of two “ambitious” authoritarian regimes “challenging established rules and norms” with “irresponsible behavior” that threatens both U.S. national security and a smooth functioning global economy.
July 2, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announces the first large charter flight since 2018 to remove Chinese nationals from the U.S. to the People’s Republic of China, which was conducted in close coordination with the National Immigration Administration of the PRC, who will continue to work with the U.S. on additional removal flights.
July 4, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns gives public remarks in China on the occasion of Independence Day, during which he welcomes Special Envoy for Climate Change Liu Zhenmin and other Chinese officials present in the audience.
July 8, 2024: The U.S. National Security Agency, jointly with the Australian Signals Directorate and other global agencies, releases a Cybersecurity Advisory titled “PRC MSS Tradecraft in Action,” detailing the tradecraft used by the cyber actor group known as APT40 that is associated with the People’s Republic of China Ministry of State Security.
July 9, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, testifying for the House Committee on Financial Services, calls support for international financial institutions “the only realistic option” for the U.S. to participate in competing against China’s own high-quality development financing.
July 9, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security releases an updated Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Strategy, identifying new high priority sectors for enforcement—aluminum, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and seafood—for the first time and redeclaring the U.S. commitment to countering forced labor.
July 9, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security-led, interagency Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force releases a Report to Congress titled “2024 Updates to the Strategy to Prevent the Importation of Goods Mined, Produced, or Manufactured with Forced Labor in the People’s Republic of China,” adding aluminum, polyvinyl chloride, and seafood as new high priority sectors for enforcement.
July 10, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, responding to a question posed at the 2024 NATO Public Forum on expanding Chinese military exercises, states that Russia’s “massive buildup of its weaponry” and its defense industrial base is “being fueled by China” and is what has “enabled [Russia] to sustain its aggression against Ukraine.” “China can’t have it both ways,” Blinken adds, “It can’t…claim to be for peace and want to have better relations with Europe – while at the same time fueling what is arguably the most significant threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.”
July 10, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken discusses challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China, including the PRC’s support for Russia’s military industrial base, in a bilateral meeting with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.
July 10, 2024: U.S. Under Secretary for International Affairs Jay Shambaugh delivers remarks at a public event on Chinese overcapacity and the global economy, detailing in particular the Biden administration’s “pursuit of a healthy economic relationship between the U.S. and China with a level playing field for American workers and firms.”
July 10, 2024: The White House releases a proclamation on “Adjusting Imports of Aluminum Into the United States,” including China as one of the countries of relevance to the supply chain.
July 10, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden extends the national emergency with respect to Hong Kong, including “recent actions taken by the People’s Republic of China to fundamentally undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy,” for one year.
July 11, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, responding to a press question on China’s geopolitical presence in the Northwest Passage amidst the announcement of the ICE Pact, calls China “a country that does not share our interests or our vision for the world” that could be dangerous if they held leverage on supply chain chokepoints.
July 11, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, giving remarks at the NATO Public Forum, lists China as one of the countries “cheerleading” President Vladimir Putin’s takeover of Ukraine.
July 11, 2024: U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner, speaking at the 2024 CSIS South China Sea Conference, says: “Let me be clear that the PRC’s claim to the Shoal has no more credibility today than it did when the Arbitral Tribunal issued its unanimous ruling in 2016. And the kind of revisionism and coercion we’ve seen there from the PRC is both destabilizing and dangerous.”
July 11, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a press statement on the eighth anniversary of the Philippines-PRC South China Sea Arbitral Tribunal ruling, reaffirming the United States’ call to the PRC to abide by the ruling and to “cease its dangerous and destabilizing conduct” such as those taken over the last year against Philippine vessels in the South China Sea.
July 11, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking in a press conference, notes that he has “spent more time with Xi Jinping than any world leader has—over 90 hours” and says that “Xi believes that China is a large enough market that they can entice any country, including European countries, to invest there in return for commitments.”
July 12, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden signs into law S.138, the “Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act” that encourages the two parties to resume direct dialogue and “seek a settlement that resolves differences and leads to a negotiated agreement on Tibet.”
July 12, 2024: The U.S. Department of State imposes visa restrictions on officials from the People’s Republic of China for their involvement in “repression of marginalized religious and ethnic communities” and calls on the PRC to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
July 17, 2024: USTR Deputy Permanent Representative David Bisbee delivers the United States’ Trade Policy Review on the PRC on to a visiting Chinese delegation led by Minister of Commerce Li Fei, summarizing that the “fundamental challenges to that [international trade] system that the PRC presents…not only persist, but are increasing.”
July 19, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking in a public interview at the Aspen Security Forum, makes multiple direct statements regarding Chinese activities related to the Ukraine-Russia war, a potential conflict with Taiwan, and tensions with the Philippines over the Second Thomas Shoal. “China continues to be a major supplier of dual-use items to Russia’s war machine,” Sullivan noted, “[a]nd we think China should stop because we think it is profoundly outside of the bounds of decent conduct by nation-states. And China should not be on team Russia when it comes to the war in Ukraine.” Sullivan says “I believe that it has to be a fundamental object of American policy to ensure that never happens; that we deter China and dissuade China from ever launching an aggressive war against Taiwan to try to take the island…we have seen the undermining of peace and stability and actions China has taken, we have taken responsive actions for our part, and we will continue to do that. So this remains a paramount priority of U.S. policy. The maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is essential to the maintenance of peace and stability in the world.”
July 19, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in a public interview at the Aspen Security Forum, makes several statements regarding China on issues such as China’s provision of inputs for Russia’s defense industrial base, the positive restoration of regular, high-level bilateral engagements since November 2023, concerns over the fentanyl supply chain through Mexico, and maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait. Blinken also said that he speaks to his Chinese counterpart “on a fairly regular basis,” which is critical “so at least China knows where we’re coming from, just as we know where they’re coming from.”
July 20, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement marking the 25 years since the People’s Republic of China “began a campaign of repression against practitioners of Falun Gong” and calls upon the PRC to “cease its repressive campaign and release all who have been imprisoned for their beliefs.”
July 22, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice unseals an indictment of a Chinese national and Texas resident for his role in a 2023 conspiracy to import what is believed to be one of the largest amounts of fentanyl precursors in the United States.
July 22, 2024: U.S. Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink, responding to press questions, says “we do welcome the announcement” of a diplomatic agreement between the Philippines and China regarding Second Thomas Shoal, calling it a “Philippines sovereign matter” wherein the United States’ role has been to continue to support our Filipino allies and international law.
July 22, 2024: U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, speaking in a press conference about the new 2024 U.S. Department of Defense Arctic Strategy, says China “seeks greater influence in the region, greater access to the region and a greater say in its governance…[to] internationalize the Arctic region,” also noting that the U.S. has “seen growing cooperation between the PRC and Russia in the Arctic” both commercially and militarily which is “concerning.”
July 23, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announces the arrest of a man being investigated over receiving shipments of illegal substances directly from China and being in direct contact with an illegal chemical supplier based in China.
July 24, 2024: FBI Director Christopher Wray submits a statement before the House Judiciary Committee in which he references the PRC several times, most notably as as a cyber threat and a foreign intelligence threat, at one point calling PRC espionage efforts “the greatest long-term threat to our Nation’s ideas, innovation, and economic security” and “consistent with the PRC’s expressed goals of becoming the preeminent power on the world stage.”
July 24, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control imposes sanctions on a network of six individuals and five entities based in the PRC for their involvement in the procurement of items supporting the DPRK’s unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.
July 24, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice unseals an indictment charging a Chinese immigrant to the U.S. of acting and conspiring to act as an agent of the People’s Republic of China as a “cooperative contact working at the direction of officers” of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) to obtain “a wide variety of information at the request of the MSS.”
July 25, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice accepts the guilty plea of two Chinese citizens residing in California who acted as unregistered agents of the PRC government directed “to further the PRC’s campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners” in the United States.
July 27, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and PRC Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Commission and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meet in Vientiane, Laos, on the margins of the ASEAN-related ministerial meetings for “open and productive discussions” and agree to maintain open lines of communication at all levels.
July 27, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference with the U.S., applauds the diplomatic agreement reached between China and the Philippines regarding the Second Thomas Shoal amidst the “PRC’s escalatory and unlawful actions taken against the Philippines in the South China Sea over the last few months.”
July 28, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases the Joint Statement on the U.S.-Japan Ministerial Meeting on Extended Deterrence, which lists “China’s accelerating and opaque expansion of its nuclear arsenal” as an increasing, escalatory concern.
July 28, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin release a joint statement with their Japanese counterparts that states the parties “concurred that the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s foreign policy seeks to reshape the international order for its own benefit at the expense of others” and “reiterated their strong opposition” to the PRC’s unilateral actions in both the East and South China Seas.
July 28, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin release a joint statement with their Japanese counterparts following a meeting of the U.S.-Japan Extended Deterrence Dialogue in which they include “China’s accelerating and opaque expansion of its nuclear arsenal” in a list of shared security concerns.
July 30, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin release a joint statement with their Philippine counterparts that expresses serious concerns about the dangerous behavior in the South China Sea over the past year and calls on the PRC to comply with both the international law of the sea and the 2016 Philippines v. China arbitration ruling.
July 30, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control targets five individuals and seven entities based in Iran, the People’s Republic of China, and Hong Kong that have facilitated procurements for Iran’s ballistic missile and unmanned aerial vehicle program.
July 31, 2024: The Biden-Harris Administration gives President Joe Biden a briefing on ongoing work to combat illicit fentanyl, the readout for which includes the “forging of historic counternarcotics cooperation with China and Mexico” in a list of successes.
July 31, 2024: National Security Advisor John Kirby, responding to a press inquiry on China expanding its influence in the Middle East, says “we’ve said many times we would welcome any credible role by China or any other nation, whether they’re in the region or not…Any other nations contributions that can be done in a credible, transparent, and sustainable way would be welcome. We’ve simply not seen that coming out of the PRC.”
July 31, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking in a public conversation in Singapore on advancing security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, calls the relationship with China “arguably the most complicated and most consequential in the world,” adding: “We’re in a competition – and by the way, there’s nothing wrong with competition…As long as it’s fair, as long as it’s on a level playing field, it’s a good thing. It hopefully brings out the best in everyone. We want to make sure that that competition doesn’t veer into conflict, which is profoundly not in our interest or anyone else’s, nor in China’s.”
July 31, 2024: The U.S. and China hold a multiagency, senior official meeting as part of the U.S.-PRC Counternarcotics Working Group in Washington, D.C. in which they reviewed progress and discussed further cooperation.
Aug. 1, 2024: The U.S.-PRC Bilateral Counternarcotics Working Group holds a senior official meeting in Washington, D.C. to review progress and discuss “next steps in furthering cooperation on this critical effort.”
Aug. 1, 2024: U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy Dr. Vipin Narang, speaking at a public event on nuclear threats in Washington, D.C., mentions that Washington was “encouraged” by China’s affirmation that a nuclear war must never be fought, but notes the PRC’s construction of hundreds of new ICBM silos in recent years, fueled by Russia, and shares that the “PRC has likely completed silo construction and has begun loading them with missiles.”
Aug. 2, 2024: U.S. Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, delivering remarks at the 2024 American Bar Association General Assembly, says “China looms large as well” in the field of online disinformation, “using social media to portray democracies as chaotic and to sow division in the United States” with the hope to collect data to “better understand – and eventually manipulate – public opinion.”
Aug. 2, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice sentences a Taiwanese national to prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and diverting products to China by using falsified export documents for at least seven years.
Aug. 5, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo convenes a roundtable discussion with investors to discuss “non-market actions from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that threaten to distort the market for mature node (or “legacy”) semiconductors.”
Aug. 6, 2024: The U.S. Department of State calls the PRC’s August 5 announcement that they will begin scheduling three essential fentanyl precursors “a valuable step forward.”
Aug. 6, 2024: The U.S. National Security Council releases a statement on the People’s Republic of China’s announcement of fentanyl scheduling actions, calling it “a valuable step forward” and the “third significant scheduling action by the PRC” since bilateral counternarcotics cooperation resumed in November 2023.
Aug. 6, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin release a joint statement with two Australian officials following the 34th Australia-U.S. Ministerial Consultations in which the parties affirmed the “importance of cooperating with China,” expressed “grave concern about China’s dangerous and escalatory behavior” in the South China Sea and about activities around Taiwan, and “expressed their disappointment that China rejected all the recommendations made by Australia and the United States during the January 2024 Universal Periodic Review of China’s human rights record,” among other comments.
Aug. 6, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, responding to a question on Taiwan at a press availability alongside Australian ministers, says “[a]s I’ve said a number of times, I don’t think conflict with China is either imminent or inevitable.”
Aug. 6, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice convicts a naturalized U.S. citizen of Chinese descent in New York of acting and conspiring to act as a covert Chinese agent since at least 2006, “masquerading as a pro-democracy activist all while covertly collecting and reporting sensitive information about its members to the PRC’s intelligence service.”
Aug. 6, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, tells the media that “[w]e remain dissatisfied about the lack of transparency” about an incident in early June where four instructors from a U.S. college were attacked in China, adding that Washington’s concerns have been made “abundantly clear” to the government in Beijing.
Aug. 7-8, 2024: The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, along with Australia, Canada and the Philippines, conduct a Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone and release a statement that “reaffirm[s] the 2016 South China Sea Arbitral Tribunal Award as a final and legally binding decision.”
Aug. 13, 2024: U.S. and French naval forces conduct bilateral operations in the Philippine Sea “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Aug. 13, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice accepts the guilty plea of a U.S. Army soldier and intelligence analyst who was indicted in March 2024 over conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, including technical data related to U.S. military weapons systems, to an individual who lived in Hong Kong and is suspected of being associated with the Chinese Government in exchange for money.
Aug. 13, 2024: U.S. and French naval forces conduct bilateral operations in the Philippines Sea “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Aug. 15-16, 2024: Senior officials from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the People’s Bank of China lead the Fifth Meeting of the Financial Working Group Between the U.S. and the People’s Republic of China in Shanghai, China, concluding with an exchange of letters in support of coordination in times of financial stress.
Aug. 19, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a press statement saying that the U.S. “stands with its ally the Philippines and condemns the dangerous actions by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the South China Sea,” stating that the “PRC ships employed reckless maneuvers, deliberately colliding with two Philippine Coast Guard ships” earlier that day.
Aug. 20, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking in a call with Philippine National Security Advisor Eduardo M. Año, condemns China’s “deliberate collision with two Philippine Coast Guard vessels operating lawfully near Sabina Shoal” and reiterates U.S. support for the U.S.-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
Aug. 22, 2024: The guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114) conducts a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait “in accordance with international law…through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state.”
Aug. 23, 2024: The U.S. Department of State announces, along with the Department of the Treasury, the designation of nearly 400 entities and individuals, including entities in the People’s Republic of China, in new measures designed to degrade Russia’s international supply chains and wartime economy.
Aug. 23, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces that a U.S. citizen and Chinese immigrant has pleaded guilty to conspiring to serve as a “cooperative contact” for and gathering information for the PRC’s Ministry of State Security.
Aug. 26, 2024: U.S. Customs and Border Protection top official Troy Miller, speaking in an interview, discusses how illegal shipments of pure fentanyl have been traced back to China since the start of concerns began over a decade ago and the efforts that have been taken since.
Aug. 27-28, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, in his first visit to China as National Security Advisor, meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi outside Beijing, China, where they hold “candid, substantive, and constructive discussions on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues” during which they note the importance of “regular, ongoing military-to-military communications…concrete steps to tackle the climate crisis,” and maintaining open lines of communication, among other issues.
Aug. 28, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan meets with General Zhang Youxia, Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission in Beijing, China, where Sullivan emphasized the two countries’ mutual “responsibility to prevent competition from veering into conflict or confrontation.”
Aug. 29, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping as part of “ongoing efforts to maintain channels of communication and responsibly manage the relationship.”
Aug. 29, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan gives remarks before the press in Beijing, China, during which he lauds the progress made in recent high-level communication between the U.S. and China over the last two years, reiterating that “competition with China does not have to lead to conflict or confrontation” if responsible management is achieved.
Aug. 29, 2024: U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai releases a statement recognizing and applauding Canada’s decision to “take strong action against the PRC’s state-directed, unfair, and anti-competitive non-market policies and practices.”
Aug. 30, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement on the second anniversary of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Assessment on the Human Rights Situation in Xinjiang, expressing disappointment that, after two years, the PRC “continues to reject the OHCHR assessment’s findings” that “serious human rights violations have been committed in Xinjiang” and urges the PRC to “end these ongoing atrocities.”
Aug. 31, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a press statement saying that the U.S. “stands with its ally, the Philippines, and condemns the dangerous and escalatory actions by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the vicinity of Sabina Shoal in the South China Sea,” stating that a Chinese Coast Guard vessel “deliberately collided three times” with a Philippine Coast Guard vessel operating in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone.
Sept. 4, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin holds a call with Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr., during which they discuss the “dangerous and escalatory actions by the People’s Republic of China against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the South China Sea.”
Sept. 4, 2024: FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at a U.S. Department of Justice Election Threats Task Force Meeting, says the FBI will “continue to keep a close eye on China’s efforts to denigrate down-ballot candidates it sees as a threat, and on their broader efforts to sow discord.”
Sept. 4, 2024: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland says the U.S. will be “relentlessly aggressive in countering and disrupting attempts by Russia and Iran — as well as China or any other foreign malign actor — to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy.”
Sept. 4-6, 2024: U.S. Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy John Podesta and China Special Envoy for Climate Change Liu Zhenmin co-lead the second meeting of the U.S.-China Working Group on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s in Beijing, China, during which both sides reaffirm their intention to jointly host, with the COP29 Presidency of Azerbaijan, a Methane and Other Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases Summit at COP29.
Sept. 6, 2024: U.S. Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy John Podesta and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, along with their Chinese counterparts, hold the U.S.-China Circular Economy Cooperation Forum and U.S.-China Subnational Climate Action Roundtable in Beijing, China.
Sept. 6, 2024: The U.S. Departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Treasury jointly release an Amendment to the July 2021 Business Advisory on Risks and Considerations for Businesses Operating in Hong Kong “to highlight new and heightened risks” for U.S. companies operating in Hong Kong.
Sept. 7, 2024: U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Marisa Lago and China’s Vice Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen hold the second Vice-Ministerial meeting of the U.S.-China Commercial Issues Working Group in Tianjin, China, with both sides agreeing to continue their regular engagement.
Sept. 8-11, 2024: U.S. and Italian naval forces, in partnership with the Australian air force, conduct a multilateral exercise in the South China Sea “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Sept. 9, 2024: U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai holds a podcast interview with Bloomberg in which she aims to “paint[s]…the picture of the reality of the U.S.-China trade relationship, China’s role in the global economy.”
Sept. 9, 2024: The U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau releases a statement by the Media Freedom Coalition, also signed by 24 other countries, that urges the Hong Kong and China authorities “to abide by their international human rights commitments and legal obligations.”
Sept. 9, 2024: Head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. Samuel Paparo holds a video teleconference with the commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command Gen. Wu Yanan, as part of efforts to resume high-level military-to-military communication.
Sept. 9-10, 2024: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his European External Action Service counterpart hold the seventh high-level meeting of the U.S.-EU Dialogue on China during which they discuss an array of bilateral and multilateral issues relevant to China and reaffirm the intent to “continue close coordination on China and the Indo-Pacific.”
Sept. 10, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense releases a joint statement following the 15th Republic of Korea-United States-Japan Defense Trilateral Talks during which the three sides shared perspectives and concerns on the “dangerous and aggressive behavior” by the PRC in the South China Sea and reaffirmed their positions on Taiwan.
Sept. 12, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security seizes over 350 internet domains allegedly being used for the illegal importation of switches and silencers from China.
Sept. 12, 2024: Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder confirms in a press conference that a representative from the Pentagon did attend the Zhejiang Forum in China, at the invitation of the PRC, reemphasizing Secretary Lloyd Austin’s belief that “we do not believe that conflict is inevitable or imminent” and that such venues are very important to communicate and prevent miscalculations.
Sept. 12, 2024: U.S. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen, delivering remarks at Columbia Law School, mentions China repeatedly alongside Russia, Iran and other “authoritarian regimes…working to stoke divisions in our society for their own benefit.”
Sept. 13, 2024: The Biden-Harris Administration announces new actions to counter the “increased abuse of the de minimis exemption,” the majority of which is conducted by several China-founded e-commerce platforms.
Sept. 13, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, after the U.S. announced the increased use of the de minimis exemption, defends the increase, saying that “for too long, Chinese e-commerce platforms have skirted tariffs by abusing the de minimis exemption.”
Sept. 13, 2024: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative announces that the final modifications concerning the statutory review of the tariff actions in the Section 301 investigation of the People’s Republic of China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation were largely adopted.
Sept. 14-15, 2024: Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Michael Chase meets with his Chinese counterpart Deputy Director of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation Maj. Gen. Ye Jiang in Beijing for the 18th U.S.-PRC Defense Policy Coordination Talks.
Sept. 16, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Air Force France Kendall, while giving a keynote address at a public conference, repeatedly emphasizes China’s ambitions, heavy investments and willingness to “push boundaries of acceptable behavior,” also adding how he has instructed personnel to “stop referring to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army as a ‘future’, or ‘emerging’, or ‘potential’ threat…[as i]t is a serious threat today.”
Sept. 17, 2024: A U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon transits the Taiwan Strait in international airspace “operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law.”
Sept. 18, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Navy, led by the Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti, releases the Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan for America’s Warfighting Navy 2024 (NAVPLAN 24), most of which is centered around achieving “readiness for the possibility of war with the People’s Republic of China by 2027” because the “PLA Navy, Rocket Force, Aerospace Force, Air Force, and Cyberspace Force are coalescing into an integrated warfighting ecosystem specifically designed to defeat ours, backed by a massive industrial base…[that] is on a wartime footing.”
Sept. 18, 2024: U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti, while introducing NAVPLAN 24, describes the PRC as a “pacing challenge and a complex, multi-domain and multi-axis threat…that is backed by a massive defense industrial base” preparing for the potential of war.
Sept. 18, 2024: The U.S. National Security Agency, along with national and global partners, release a joint cybersecurity advisory assessing that PRC-linked cyber actors have “compromised thousands of Internet-connected devices” to create a botnet, which has been controlled and managed by Integrity Technology Group, a PRC-based company “with links to the PRC government,” since mid-2021.
Sept. 18, 2024: FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking at the 2024 Aspen Cyber Summit, announces that the FBI and its partners have successfully disrupted a second Chinese botnet known as Flax Typhoon, like Volt Typhoon “working at the direction of the Chinese government,” that had been targeting critical infrastructure via hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices.
Sept. 19-20, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Under Secretary for International Affairs Jay Shambaugh and Vice Minister of Finance at China’s Ministry of Finance Liao Min co-lead the fifth meeting of the Economic Working Group (EWG) in Beijing, China. While in Beijing, the Treasury delegation also meets with Vice Premier He Lifeng to whom they pass along U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen’s positive sentiments on the efficacy of the EWG.
Sept. 20, 2024: Head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. Samuel Paparo meets with the commander of the People’s Liberation Army’s Southern Theater Command Gen. Wu Yanan during the 26th annual Indo-Pacific Chiefs of Defense in Hawaii.
Sept. 23, 2024: The White House releases a fact sheet titled “Protecting America from Connected Vehicle Technology from Countries of Concern,” specifically referring to the People’s Republic of China and Russia and starting with the following statement: “Chinese automakers are seeking to dominate connected vehicle technologies in the United States and globally…”
Sept. 24, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking before the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, emphasizes that the U.S. “seek[s] to responsibly manage the competition with China so it does not veer into conflict,” adding that he “appreciates” the recently resumed collaboration with China to halt the flow of deadly synthetic narcotics.
Sept. 24, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his remarks at the UN Security Council Ministerial Meeting on Ukraine, names China as “the top provider of machine tools, microelectronics, and other items that Russia is using to rebuild, to restock, to ramp up its war machine and sustain its brutal aggression.”
Sept. 24, 2024: The G7 Foreign Ministers put out a joint release addressing various global issues, including how they “seek constructive and stable relations with China…[and] recognize the importance of China in global trade,” but also remain “seriously concerned” about maritime security in several locations across the Indo-Pacific as well as the “human rights situation in China.”
Sept. 24, 2024: The U.S., on behalf of the United Nations’ Core Group on Xinjiang, presents a joint statement on Xinjiang on the Second Anniversary of the OHCHR’s Assessment, which expresses regret over China’s lack of action to meaningfully address the assessment’s findings.
Sept. 25, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden, providing remarks before the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, says he “appreciate[s] the collaboration” recently resumed with China on counternarcotics and notes that the U.S. seeks to “responsibly manage the competition with China so it does not veer into conflict.”
Sept. 25, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson, responding to a question about the PRC’s ICBM test launch, notes “we believe that that [advanced notice from China about the launch] was a good thing. That was a step in the right direction. And it does lead, you know, to preventing any misperception or miscalculation.”
Sept. 25, 2024: U.S. National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi, giving remarks in New York City, depicts a U.S. and Chinese comparison of progress in clean manufacturing: “As U.S. production declined, production in China rose to take its place, driven in part by China’s non-market policies. Today, more than half of the world’s aluminum is made in China. That’s an industrial competitiveness problem. It’s also a climate problem. Because the average ton of aluminum made in China is 65 percent more emissions-intensive than in the U.S.”
Sept. 26, 2024: The U.S. Embassy in China highlights information about a historical photo exhibition on U.S.-China cooperation during World War II at the Beijing American Center.
Sept. 27, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with PRC Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Commission and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the margins of the 79th UN General Assembly in New York City and hold “candid, substantive, and productive discussions on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues” while emphasizing the need to maintain open lines of communication.
Sept. 27, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, responding to a press question in New York City on sanctions on China related to their dual-use assistance to Russia, clarifies: “Our intent is not to decouple Russia from China. Their relationship is their business. But insofar as that relationship involves providing Russia what it needs to continue this war, that’s a problem and it’s a problem for us and it’s a problem for many other countries…”
Sept. 28, 2024: The U.S. naval forces, alongside counterparts from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, conduct a Maritime Cooperative Activity within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea to demonstrate their “shared commitment to the rules-based international order.”
Oct. 2, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken releases a congratulatory message to the people of the PRC on the occasion of its 75th National Day, adding that the U.S. is “committed to responsibly managing our bilateral relationship with the PRC and will maintain open lines of communication.”
Oct. 2, 2024: The Department of Homeland Security adds two China-based entities, one steel company and one aspartame company, to the Uygur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List.
Oct. 2, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden signs into law S. 2228, the “Building Chips in America Act of 2023.”
Oct. 7, 2024: U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai releases a statement welcoming the European Union’s latest action in its anti-subsidy investigation on imports of battery electric vehicles from China.
Oct. 7, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Navy releases a Cyber Security Awareness Month statement that points to China as the “most active and persistent cyber threat to U.S. Government, private-sector, and critical Infrastructure networks.”
Oct. 8, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo conducts a call with Minister of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China Wang Wentao to candidly exchange concerns and maintain an open channel of communication.
Oct. 8, 2024: U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade Marisa Lago, speaking at a U.S. Trade and Development Agency civil nuclear energy workshop, notes that 80% of new nuclear reactors being made since 2017 have been either Russian or Chinese designs, adding that the U.S. is “monitoring uranium imports from China and other countries to ensure that they aren’t circumventing U.S. sanctions on Russian imports.”
Oct. 10, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice files a civil lawsuit against an American owner of a U.S.-based corporation that imported Chinese-manufactured solar panels into the U.S., alleging misclassification and failure to pay duties.
Oct. 10, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at the ASEAN Summit with the United States in Laos, says the U.S. “remain[s] concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful actions in the South and East China Seas, which…contradict commitments to peaceful resolution of disputes.”
Oct. 10, 2024: U.S. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, responding to a press question on potential Chinese military activities near Taiwan on Taiwan’s National Day, states “we see no…justification, certainly, for a routine annual celebration to be used as a pretext for military exercises” and urge Beijing to “act with restraint,” adding that the United States’ “One China policy has not changed, and we’ve been really consistent about that in the past three and a half years.”
Oct. 11, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, responding to a press question in Laos on potential Chinese military activities near Taiwan on Taiwan’s National Day, states “China should not use [the so-called 10/10 speech] in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions…we want to reinforce…the imperative of preserving the status quo.”
Oct. 11, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken participates in the 12th ASEAN-U.S. Summit in Laos during which he addresses “pressing geopolitical issues including provocative PRC actions in the South China Sea, East China Sea, and the Taiwan Strait.”
Oct. 11, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken participates in the 19th East Asia Summit during which he addresses the “PRC’s provocations” in the South China Sea and East China Sea and reaffirms the “U.S. commitment to maintaining open channels of communication with the PRC.”
Oct. 13, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement expressing serious concerns over the “unwarranted” People’s Liberation Army joint military drills in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan.
Oct. 14, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense releases a statement on the People’s Liberation Army exercise, JOINT SWORD 2024B, conducted around Taiwan the day after Taiwan’s national day, calling this “military pressure operation…irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing” while concluding that the U.S. remains committed to its longstanding one China policy.
Oct. 15, 2024: U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, speaking in a public think tank interview, says China’s “relentless modernization and expansion” is the “pacing challenge” for the U.S., and that the Pentagon holds an “asymmetric advantage” over China and Russia due to the network of U.S. allies.
Oct. 15, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, speaking at the Zero-Carbon Climate Summit in Beijing, highlights recent U.S.-China activities and positive progress, summarizing that the U.S. and China “have a common interest, and a common responsibility, to address this crisis, together.” Burns also noted, “respectfully…China is also – while it’s the world leader in renewable technology – China is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, at 28% of all global emissions, while the U.S. is at 10%.”
Oct. 17, 2024: U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economics Daleep Singh, speaking in an Alliance for American Manufacturing event, says that China’s overcapacity is “not abstract. You can see it in the numbers…and we’ve got to do something about it.”
Oct. 17, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announces sanctions on three PRC-based entities and one individual for their involvement in the development and production of Russia’s Garpiya series long-range attack drone that has been used in Russia’s war against Ukraine, marking the first U.S. sanctions imposed on PRC entities directly developing and producing complete weapons systems in partnership with Russian firms.
Oct. 20, 2024: The guided-missile destroyer USS Higgins (DDG 76) and Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Vancouver (FFH 331) conduct a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait “in accordance with international law…through a high seas corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal state.”
Oct. 21, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice issues a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would help establish a new program to prevent access to U.S. sensitive data by China and other countries of concern.
Oct. 21, 2024: U.S. White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby, responding to a press question on China’s Russia-related activities, notes “I don’t think the PRC has ever gotten that message” that it can continue to do whatever it wants without consequences, as “we’ve been none too shy about making our concerns known…And we’ve sanctioned them. We have had very frank conversations with Chinese leaders…So I think our message to the PRC has been clear and constant and remains so.”
Oct. 21-24, 2024: U.S. Department of State Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs Deputy Assistant Secretary Robert Garverick leads a U.S. delegation to Taiwan to prepare for the fifth U.S.-Taiwan Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue and discuss economic issues.
Oct. 23, 2024: U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power, responding to a press question in Cambodia on China’s growing presence in Cambodia and local democratization, emphasizes the U.S. goal is to strengthen a country’s path to independence, not dependence, and supplies a comparison of the U.S. and PRC development models: “The United States invests about nine dollars in grants for every dollar of loan that the United States provides. The PRC invests about nine dollars in loans for every dollar in grants.”
Oct. 23, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, speaking at a Chinese art exhibition at his residence in Beijing, lauds the exhibition artists and emphasizes the “shared humanity” that exists between the Chinese and American people.
Oct. 23, 2024: U.S. Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Jose Fernandez leads the virtually-held fifth U.S.-Taiwan Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, conducted under the auspices of the American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States.
Oct. 24, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces the indictments placed against eight China-based chemical companies and eight employees who are charged with alleged fentanyl manufacturing and distribution.
Oct. 24, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking on AI and national security at a public event, explains that, since “[w]e know that China is building its own technological ecosystem with digital infrastructure that won’t protect sensitive data, that can enable mass surveillance and censorship, that can spread misinformation…that can make countries vulnerable to coercion,” strong partnerships are invaluable.
Oct. 25, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Under Secretary for International Affairs Jay Shambaugh and Vice Minister of Finance at China’s Ministry of Finance Liao Min co-lead the sixth meeting of the Economic Working Group in Washington, D.C. on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, discussing areas of both concerns and cooperation.
Oct. 28, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Assistant Secretary for International Affairs Brent Neiman and Deputy Governor of the People’s Bank of China Xuan Changneng co-lead the sixth meeting of the Financial Working Group in Washington, D.C. on the sidelines of the IMF-World Bank Annual Meetings, discussing areas of both concerns and cooperation.
Oct. 28, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury issues a final rule to implement Executive Order 14105, “Addressing United States Investments in Certain National Security Technologies and Products in Countries of Concern,” in which the PRC had been identified as a country of concern.
Oct. 28, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Meg Whitman, speaking to Bloomberg, says the U.S. has “left an open running room for China” in Africa to the detriment of U.S. industry and argues the need for the U.S. to start showing up in Africa.
Oct. 28-30, 2024: The U.S. Department of Commerce holds a FinTech Business Development Mission to Hong Kong to give U.S. fintech companies the opportunity to engage with Hong Kong’s leading financial institutions, visit innovation hubs, and attend networking events.
Oct. 29, 2024: A senior administration official, speaking in a press call on the new rules to address U.S. investments in certain technologies, states: “The People’s Republic of China has a stated goal, as you know: to develop key sensitive technologies that will directly support the PRC’s military modernization and related activities, including weapons development, and it has exploited U.S. investments to develop domestic, military, and intelligence capabilities.”
Oct. 30, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense and its South Korean counterparts release the 56th Security Consultative Meeting Joint Communique in which it stresses the importance of the entire global community, including the People’s Republic of China, in fully implementing UN Security Council resolutions that dissuade and delay North Korea’s nuclear development.
Oct. 30, 2024: The U.S. Department of State announces, along with the Departments of the Treasury and Commerce, the sanctioning of nearly 400 entities and individuals, including entities in the People’s Republic of China, for “enabling Russia’s prosecution of its illegal war.”
Oct. 30, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a fact sheet reflecting on the Department’s last three years of efforts to strengthen national security, in which the first critical missions listed is the successful establishment of the Office of China Coordination, also known as “China House,” a “whole-of-enterprise approach to strategic competition and diplomatic relations with the PRC.”
Oct. 30, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice accepts a guilty pleas of two men, one being a Chinese national, who were members of a transnational money laundering organization related to the importation of illegal drugs.
Oct. 31, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice files a civil lawsuit against an American owner of a U.S.-based corporation that imported Chinese-manufactured bedroom furniture into the U.S., alleging misclassification and failure to pay duties.
Oct. 31, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, responding to a press question at a joint press availability following a 2+2 ministerial meeting with the Republic of Korea, says, “when it comes to China, as a member of the United Nations Security Council, we would and should expect no less” effort in helping to halt North Korea’s provocative actions, and “I think they know well the concerns that we have and the expectations that, both in word and deed, they’ll use the influence that they have to work to curb these activities. So we’ll see if they take action.”
Oct. 31, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, responding to a press question at a joint press availability following a 2+2 ministerial meeting with the Republic of Korea, says “I would refer you to the PRC for their position, but if China is serious about its desire for de-escalation, it should be asking Russia some hard questions at this point.”
Oct. 31, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security adds three PRC-based textile companies to the Uygur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List.
Oct. 31, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement condemning the “unjust imprisonment” by the People’s of Republic of China of a human rights lawyer and his wife on October 29, calling it a demonstration of the “PRC’s continuing efforts to silence those who speak out for human rights and the rule of law” and objecting to the trial’s lack of transparency.
Nov. 6, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns provides brief remarks at the 2024 Election Watch Party at the U.S. Embassy to the People’s Republic of China, in which he expresses hope that “Chinese friends…might see and that you might feel and that you might experience the power of the people’s vote and the power of ‘We the People’ in American democracy.”
Nov. 6-8, 2024: Representatives from U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Pacific Fleet, U.S. Pacific Air Forces, and U.S. Coast Guard travel to Qingdao, China to meet with the People’s Republic of China People’s Liberation Army Navy and Air Force for the semi-annual working group and annual plenary session of the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement, meetings which “serve to clarify intent and reduce the risk of misperception, miscalculation, or accidents, and therefore help foster stability within the U.S.-PRC military-to-military relationship.”
Nov. 7, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden extends the national emergency with respect to the threat from securities investments that finance certain companies of the People’s Republic of China for one year beyond its expiration date of November 12, 2024 as the “PRC military-industrial complex…continues to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat.”
Nov. 8, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement supporting the Philippines’ enactment of the Maritime Zones Act signed into law by Philippine President Marcos on November 8, 2024, stating that this “routine” law “defines the Philippines internal waters, archipelagic waters, territorial sea, contiguous zone, exclusive economic zone, and continental shelf in line with the Convention.”
Nov. 12, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice accepts a guilty plea of a Chinese dual citizen over a cryptocurrency investment money laundering scheme that laundered over $73 million.
Nov. 12, 2024: The U.S. Department of State, along with the People’s Republic of China and Azerbaijan, jointly convene “The Sprint to Cut Climate Super Pollutants: COP 29 Summit on Methane and Non-CO2 GHGs” to collaboratively battle and bring attention to super pollutant greenhouse gases.
Nov. 13, 2024: The U.S. FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) release a joint statement on the continued investigation into the PRC’s “targeting of commercial telecommunications infrastructure has revealed a broad and significant cyber espionage campaign,” noting that actors have been identified.
Nov. 13, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, delivering remarks at a ceremony to sign the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort Pact in Washington, D.C., says “Russia and China are strengthening their capabilities in the Arctic, and we cannot afford to allow our own United States Coast Guard and United States Navy to fall behind.”
Nov. 13, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, responding to press questions on upcoming administrative changes, opines that succeeding in long-term competition with the PRC “will require a bipartisan foundation” and “if you look out at a strategic level, the competition with the People’s Republic of China is going to be defining for what the world looks like over the course of the next 10, 20, and 30 years, and so that has got to be a paramount priority for the incoming administration.”
Nov. 13, 2024: U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai meets with Minister-without-Portfolio Jen-ni Yang of Taiwan on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Ministerial Meeting in Lima, Peru, during which the two sides highlight the importance of mutual economic and trade ties and laud the progress made thus far through the United States-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade.
Nov. 14, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking to press en route to Lima, Peru, notes that “there’s an interesting dynamic where every time we fly to South America or Africa, the press writes the story: ‘China is doing a lot; America is doing a little’” while the numbers depict a different story.
Nov. 14, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announces the indictment of a Chinese chemical company and its senior leaders for allegedly selling fentanyl precursor chemicals and xylazine globally.
Nov. 15, 2024: U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, delivering remarks for a Drug Enforcement Administration summit, states “[w]e know that the fentanyl supply chain, which ends with the death of Americans, often starts with chemical companies in China.”
Nov. 16, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security completes a third large-frame charter removal flight to China of Chinese nationals with no lawful basis to remain in the United States in “yet another example of the Department’s ongoing cooperation with the PRC.”
Nov. 16, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense releases the Australia-Japan-United States Trilateral Defense Ministers’ Meeting November 2024 Joint Statement that condemns the “dangerous conduct” by the PRC in the South China Sea and reiterates the four countries’ “strong opposition to any unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force or coercion.”
Nov. 16, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet in Lima, Peru and hold a “candid, constructive discussion on a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including areas of cooperation and areas of difference,” both stressing the importance of “all countries treating each other with respect and finding a way to live alongside each other peacefully.”
Nov. 17, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking to the press following President Joe Biden’s meeting with President Xi Jinping in Peru, shares that President Biden did “reinforce the point [to President Xi Jinping] that these next two months are a time of transition in the United States and a time where stability in the U.S.-China relationship is essential…[but] wasn’t projecting ahead to what was going to happen after January 20th.”
Nov. 18, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, during talks with his counterparts while visiting the Philippines, discusses the “repeated harassment” by the PRC and underscores continued U.S. support for the Philippines.
Nov. 19, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement condemning the “unjust sentencing” of 45 defendants in Hong Kong’s National Security Law trial of pro-democracy advocates known as the NSL 47, stating such “harsh sentences erode confidence in Hong Kong’s judicial system and harm the city’s international reputation” and calling on the PRC government and Hong Kong authorities to uphold Hong Kong’s judicial independence.
Nov. 19, 2024: U.S. Principal Deputy Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Jed Royal, speaking at the 2024 Mt. Fuji Dialogue, notes the Indo-Pacific’s “regional security landscape is heavily impacted by China’s rapid military modernization, increasing provocations abroad, and comprehensive repression at home,” adding that “[t]he combination of emerging capability, operational activity, and routine dismissal of regional and global norms cannot be explained as simply defensive in nature.”
Nov. 19, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice sentences a Chinese citizen and U.S. resident for acting as an unregistered agent of the government of the PRC and bribing an Internal Revenue Service agent “in connection with a plot to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong.”
Nov. 20, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces the guilty plea of a Chinese national who admitted to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Nov. 21, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, during a joint press briefing in the Philippines, reiterates how the PRC’s behavior in the South China Sea “has been concerning” and how that concern has been shared with Chinese counterparts “a number of times in a number of forums.”
Nov. 22, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announces the addition of 29 PRC-based companies to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, bringing the total number of entities on the UFLPA Entity List to 107.
Nov. 25, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice sentences a U.S. citizen for “conspiring to act as an agent of the People’s Republic of China,” having “obtained a wide variety of information” at the request of the PRC’s Ministry of State Security.
Nov. 25, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice charges two men with robbing a Chinese business in Puerto Rico.
Nov. 26, 2024: A U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon transits the Taiwan Strait in international airspace “operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law.”
Nov. 26, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases the Group of Seven Foreign Ministers Meeting Statement that, among other notes, states their desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and “readiness to cooperate with China to address global challenges,” recognizes the “importance of China in global trade,” and calls on China to “refrain from adopting export control measures” and “step up efforts to promote international peace and security,” especially in regards to Russia, North Korea, and the East and South China Seas.
Nov. 26, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking at a press availability following the G7 ministerial meeting in Italy, gives several remarks on China, most notably: “G7 is increasingly aligned on our view of the economic and security risks posed by the People’s Republic of China, the policies it’s pursuing, even as we recognize the need for constructive engagement. Over four years we have forged much greater convergence, more than ever before, on common approaches to China…we’re now engaging China and the challenges it poses from a position of strength.” Blinken also remarks that “China has an important role to play in using its influence – its influence with the DPRK, North Korea, as well as with Russia – to cease these activities…as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, we, I think, would all look to China to use its influence to try to bring this to an end.”
Nov. 27, 2024: The U.S. Department of State updates its Travel Advisory for Mainland China and Hong Kong, shifting them from Level 3 (“Reconsider travel”) to Level 2 (“Exercise increased caution”).
Nov. 29, 2024: The U.S. Consulate General in Hong Kong & Macau releases an updated summary of their tracking list on “Arrests Under 2020 National Security Law (NSL) and 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance (SNSO) in Hong Kong.”
Nov. 29, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement condemning the “unjust sentencing” of PRC journalist Dong Yuyu, saying it “highlight[s] the PRC’s failure to live up to its commitments under international law and its own constitutional guarantees to all its citizens” and calling for his immediate release.
Nov. 29, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden, responding to a press question about President-elect Trump’s proposed tariffs, says “we have reached a relationship where there’s a status quo ante with regard to China…we’ve set up a hotline between President Xi and myself, as well as through our military — a direct line. The one thing I’m confident about Xi is he doesn’t want to make a mistake. And I mean that sincerely. And I’m not saying that he is our best buddy, but he — he understands what’s at stake.”
Jan. 4, 2024: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken releases a statement designating the People’s Republic of China as one of 12 “Countries of Particular Concern for having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”
Jan. 7, 2024: PRC foreign ministry announces the imposition of countermeasures against five US defense industry companies for arms sales to “China’s Taiwan Region” in accordance with its Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law.
Jan. 8-9, 2024: US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Michael Chase and PRC Deputy Director of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation Major General Song Yanchao meet at the Pentagon for the 17th US-PRC Defense Policy Coordination Talks to discuss US-PRC defense relations.
Jan. 8, 2024: US Justice Department, in partnership with other government partners, sentences a US Navy service member to 27 months in prison “for transmitting sensitive US military information to an intelligence officer from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in exchange for bribery payments.”
Jan. 10, 2024: US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, accompanied by several other senior officials from various departments, meets with PRC Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong virtually to discuss “the importance of cooperating on key law enforcement issues, including combatting the illicit flow of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and their precursor chemicals.”
Jan. 10, 2024: US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo holds a phone call with PRC Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao.
Jan. 13, 2024: Secretary Blinken releases a statement congratulating Dr. Lai Ching-te on “his victory in Taiwan’s presidential election,” reiterating the US commitment “to maintaining cross-Strait peace and stability” and to the US ‘One China’ policy. PRC Foreign Ministry spokesperson “deplore[s] and firmly opposes” Secretary Blinken’s statement.
Jan. 18, 2024: US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack meets with PRC Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian, the first meeting since 2015 of the Joint Committee on Cooperation in Agriculture.
Jan. 18-19, 2024: Senior officials from the US Department of the Treasury and the People’s Bank of China, hold the third meeting of the Financial Working Group, the first time the meeting is held in China.
Jan. 23, 2024: US Permanent Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council Ambassador Michèle Taylor, speaking on behalf of the 45th Session of the Universal Periodic Review Working Group, releases a statement on the PRC, listing recommendations and condemnations to the Secretariat of the Human Rights Council for the record.
Jan. 26-27, 2024: US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan meets Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok, Thailand for more than 12 hours over two days as part of efforts to “maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage competition in the relationship as directed by the leaders” at the Woodside Summit in November 2023.
Jan 29, 2024: US Commerce Department issues a proposed rule that would compel US cloud companies to alert the government when foreign clients train their most powerful AI models using the compute power provided by these cloud companies.
Jan. 30, 2024: US Deputy Assistant to the President and US Deputy Homeland Security Advisor Jen Daskal leads an interagency delegation to Beijing to launch the US-PRC Counternarcotics Working Group, with both sides emphasizing “the need to coordinate on law enforcement actions; address the misuse of precursor chemicals, pill presses, and related equipment to manufacture illicit drugs; target the illicit financing of transnational criminal organization networks; and engage in multilateral fora.”
Jan. 30, 2024: Office of the United States Trade Representative releases the findings of its 2023 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy, which lists several China-based e-commerce and social commerce markets, a cloud storage service, and “seven physical markets in China known for the manufacture, distribution, and sale of counterfeit goods.”
Jan. 31, 2024: US Federal Bureau of Investigation Christopher Wray testifies before the US House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party regarding the “CCP Cyber Threats to the American Homeland and National Security.”
Jan. 31, 2024: Department of Defense updates its list of names of “‘Chinese military companies’ operating directly or indirectly in the United States” in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021.
Feb. 1, 2024: Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves, speaking at the NTIA Spectrum Policy Symposium, says “[t]he US is engaged in a high-stakes, must-win competition over critical and emerging technologies with adversarial nations across the globe…As we speak, China is launching a concerted effort to dominate 5G deployment and the eventual development of 6G.”
Feb. 5-6, 2024: Senior officials from the Department of the Treasury and China’s Ministry of Finance hold the third meeting of the Economic Working Group, the first time the meeting is held in China.
Feb. 7, 2024: Department of Justice arrests an individual in California seeking to illegally transfer to China software and technology developed by the US government for use to detect nuclear missile launches and track ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
Feb. 7, 2024: US National Security Agency and partners issue a Cybersecurity Advisory titled “PRC State-Sponsored Actors Compromise and Maintain Persistent Access to US Critical Infrastructure.”
Feb. 7-8, 2024: USS John Finn (DDG 113) and USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) conduct trilateral operations with allied maritime forces from Japan and Australia in the South China Sea to “promote transparency, rule of law, freedom of navigation and all principles that underscore security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.”
Feb. 7-8, 2024: US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and EU Secretary General Stefano Sannino hold sixth high-level meeting of the US-EU Dialogue on China and the fifth meeting of the US-EU High-Level Consultations on the Indo-Pacific in which they discussed several issues including “the trajectory of their respective bilateral relationships.”
Feb. 9, 2024: US Navy and Philippine Navy conduct the third iteration of the Maritime Cooperative Activity in the South China Sea, “reaffirming both nations’ commitment to bolstering regional security and stability” and “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Feb. 9, 2024: National Security Council releases a statement marking the two-year anniversary of the Indo-Pacific Strategy, reaffirming the US commitment to the region “amidst strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China.”
Feb. 12, 2024: US Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman delivers remarks at a public panel on great power competition, during which he names China as a “pacing threat” and explains “[w]e have to be able to assess…whether or not we are ready to engage an adversary like the PRC.”
Feb. 14, 2024: US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson, testifying before the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services, lists China as a threat to the US financial system and affirms “we will safeguard our priority interests, along with those of our allies and partners, and will protect human rights.”
Feb. 15, 2024: FBI Director Wray, in remarks at the Munich Security Conference, highlights “The China Threat” and calls the Chinese government “the chief among those [cyber threat] adversaries.”
Feb. 15, 2024: USS John Finn (DDG 113) conducts a bilateral exercise with allied maritime forces from Japan in the South China Sea.
Feb. 16, 2024: Multi-agency Disruptive Technology Strike Force, led by the Departments of Justice and Commerce, releases a fact sheet on its one-year anniversary summarizing its progress in its mission to “prevent nation-state actors [including China] from illicitly acquiring our most sensitive technology.”
Feb. 20, 2024: White House hosts a background call to preview the “Biden-Harris Administration Initiative to Bolster the Cybersecurity of US Ports,” during which US Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger calls the People’s Republic of China-manufactured ship-to-shore cranes an “acute…cyber vulnerability.”
Feb. 21, 2024: Biden-Harris Administration issues an Executive Order to bolster the cybersecurity of US maritime ports, which includes a “Maritime Security Directive on cyber risk management actions for ship-to-shore cranes manufactured by the People’s Republic of China located at US Commercial Strategic Seaports.”
Feb. 21, 2024: US Senior Official for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Jung Pak holds a videoconference with PRC Special Representative on Korean Peninsula Affairs Liu Xiaoming to discuss the DPRK’s increasing destabilization and its deepening military cooperation with Russia, with both parties agreeing on the need for stability and dialogue.
Feb. 23, 2024: Office of the USTR releases its 2023 Report to Congress on China’s WTO Compliance and Trade Representative Katherine Tai remarks how “China remains the biggest challenge to the international trading system established by the World Trade Organization” in spite of China having acceded to the WTO in 2001.
Feb. 24, 2024: G7 Leaders release a joint statement focused on the Russia-Ukraine conflict in which they express “concern about transfers to Russia from businesses in the People’s Republic of China of dual-use materials and components for weapons and equipment for military production.”
Feb. 25, 2024: US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns conducts an interview with 60 Minutes in Beijing during which he summarizes the current state of US-China relations: “We’re going to compete. We have to compete responsibly and keep the peace between our countries. But we also have to engage.”
Feb. 26, 2024: Trade Representative Tai participates in a “robust” bilateral meeting with PRC Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao during the first day of the World Trade Organization’s 13th Ministerial Conference, resulting in the two parties agreeing “to work on areas of shared cooperation” as well as those of competition.
Feb. 28, 2024: Biden-Harris administration issues an Executive Order on Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive Personal Data and United States Government-Related Data by Countries of Concern.
Feb. 29, 2024: White House releases a Fact Sheet on taking action to “Address Risks of Autos from China and Other Countries of Concern.”
March 5, 2024: USS John Finn (DDG 113) conducts a routine south-to-north Taiwan Strait transit “through a corridor in the Taiwan Strait that is beyond any coastal state’s territorial seas.”
March 5, 2024: Department of State releases a press statement saying the US “stands with our ally the Philippines following the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) provocative actions against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the South China Sea on March 5,” also calling “upon the PRC to abide by the ruling and desist from its dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”
March 6, 2024: US Attorney General Merrick Garland announces the arrest and indictment of a Chinese national residing in California charged with theft of trade secrets in connection with an alleged plan to steal artificial intelligence-related technology from Google “while covertly working for China-based companies seeking an edge in the AI technology race.”
March 7, 2024: In his 2024 State of the Union speech, President Biden briefly refers to China directly, openly disagreeing that “China’s on the rise and America is falling behind” and lauding the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to stay economically and technologically competitive with China.
March 11, 2024: Secretary of Defense Austin says the President’s Fiscal Year 2025 Defense Budget is “paced to the challenge posed by an increasingly aggressive People’s Republic of China.”
March 11-12, 2024: US Ambassador to China Burns, hosted by US Consul General Gregory May, visits Hong Kong for the first time in his role as US ambassador to China.
March 12, 2024: PRC State Council releases its Government Work Report, which affirms its interest in the “peaceful development of cross-strait relations” and “integrated cross-strait development.”
March 12, 2024: Trade Representative Tai releases a statement on a petition filed by five US national unions “requesting an investigation into the acts, policies, and practices of the PRC in the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sector,” noting that “[w]e have seen the PRC create dependencies and vulnerabilities in multiple sectors.”
March 15, 2024: US Ambassador to China Burns, speaking at a virtual seminar on US-China relations, calls the US and China competition “quite profound” and notes the two “will very likely be systemic rivals well into the next decade,” to which China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian responds that “Ambassador Burns has recently made negative comments on China on multiple occasions.”
March 19, 2024: Secretary Blinken, speaking at a joint news conference with his counterpart in Manila, reaffirms the “ironclad commitment” to the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty and how it “extends to any armed attacks…anywhere in the South China Sea,” to which Beijing immediately responds that the US has “no right to interfere.”
March 19, 2024: Department of Justice arrests a Canadian national and Chinese resident in New York for conspiring with a Chinese national “to send to undercover law enforcement officers trade secrets that belonged to a leading US-based electric vehicle company.”
March 21, 2024: Department of State Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel, at a press briefing, says the US “recognizes Arunachal Pradesh as Indian territory” and strongly opposes any unilateral attempts to advance territorial claims.
March 22, 2024: Secretary Blinken releases a statement on Hong Kong’s New National Security Law that objects to its “vaguely defined provisions” and condemns “efforts to intimidate, harass, and limit the free speech of US citizens and residents.”
March 25, 2024: Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions a Wuhan, China-based “Ministry of State Security (MSS) front company that has served as cover for multiple malicious cyber operations.”
March 25, 2024: Department of Justice unseals an indictment of seven nationals of the People’s Republic of China who committed computer instructions in support of China’s Ministry of State Security targeting perceived critics of China in addition to US businesses and politicians.
March 27, 2024: Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, speaking at Suniva in Norcross, Georgia, describes the “excess capacity that we are seeing in China” as a “particular” concern for the US and notes her Chinese counterparts will be pressed to address this issue.
March 27, 2024: President Xi meets representatives of US business, strategic and academic communities at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. It is his first meeting with a visiting US business delegation since 2015.
March 28, 2024: US Embassy & Consulates in China celebrates opening of a newly relocated consulate facility in Wuhan, China, which US Ambassador Burns and several Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other Chinese representatives attended and expressed support for.
March 28, 2024: Department of Defense releases its Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Strategy 2024, which lists China as “A Major Disruptor” and asserts China’s goal is to “[c]onstrain the US and become the Commercial Center of Gravity in the World.”
March 29, 2024: Secretary Blinken releases to US Congress the Hong Kong Policy Act Report for 2024, commenting that “[t]his year’s report catalogs the intensifying repression and ongoing crackdown by PRC and Hong Kong authorities on civil society, media, and dissenting voices” and subsequently announcing the Department of State “is taking steps to impose new visa restrictions on multiple Hong Kong officials.”
April 2, 2024: President Biden holds a “candid and constructive” phone call with President Xi to address “a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including areas of cooperation and areas of difference.”
April 2, 2024: Department of Homeland Security releases the Cyber Safety Review Board’s findings and recommendations following its independent review of the Summer 2023 Microsoft Exchange Online intrusion, which found that the intrusion was conducted “by Storm-0558, a hacking group assessed to be affiliated with the People’s Republic of China.”
April 3-4, 2024: Representatives from US Indo-Pacific Command, US Pacific Fleet, and US Pacific Air Forces meet with People’s Liberation Army representatives in Honolulu, Hawaii for the first Military Maritime Consultative Agreement working group held since December 2021.
April 4-5, 2024: US-EU Trade and Technology Council holds its sixth ministerial meeting and releases a joint statement saying the parties have “engaged with other countries who share our concerns about China’s non-market policies and practices in the medical devices sector, and conveyed these concerns directly to China.”
April 6, 2024: Secretary of the Treasury Yellen meets with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, China to deepen bilateral discussions.
April 7, 2024: Secretary of the Treasury Yellen meets Minister of Finance Lan Fo’an to discuss the role of their departments in “maintaining a durable communication channel between the US and China.”
April 8, 2024: Secretary of the Treasury Yellen, speaking at a press conference in Beijing, reviews the “significant progress” made in the US-China economic relationship over the last year and during her visit to China, concluding “[t]here is much more work to do” as the US aims to find “a way forward so that both countries can live in a world of peace and prosperity.”
April 9, 2024: Administrator of the US Agency for International Development Samantha Power, testifying before the Senate, details China’s “global lending spree” and “flagrant disregard for human rights” as a case of how “other global powers are working aggressively to erode US alliances, undermine democracy, and diminish basic rights and freedoms.”
April 11, 2024: Leaders of Japan, the Philippines and the US hold an inaugural trilateral summit and release a joint vision statement that highlights their “serious concerns” about aggressive, dangerous and coercive behavior in both the South China Sea and East China Sea.
April 12, 2024: Inaugural US-Philippines 3+3 Meeting is held in Washington, D.C., during which both parties deepened coordination on issues including “repeated harassment of lawful Philippine operations by the People’s Republic of China.”
April 14-16, 2024: US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and US National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran meet Ministry of Foreign Affairs Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, Director General of the North American and Oceanian Affairs Department Yang Tao, and Taiwan Affairs Office Deputy Director Qiu Kaiming in Beijing, “as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication and responsibly manage competition.”
April 16, 2024: Trade Representative Tai testifies before the Senate Committee on Finance that the Biden administration “will continue to stand up to China’s unfair, non-market policies and practices” alongside partners and allies, emphasizing the complexity of the bilateral relationship and echoing President Joe Biden’s sentiments that “we want competition with China, not conflict.”
April 16, 2024: Fourth US-People’s Republic of China Economic and Financial Working Groups are held in Washington, DC, both of which discuss macro- and micro-issues of import and conclude with mutual commitments to continually deepen bilateral communications.
April 16, 2024: US Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Lee Satterfield meets with the China’s Vice Minister of Culture and Tourism Li Qun in Washington, to discuss cooperation and collaboration specific to archaeology and cultural heritage.
April 17, 2024: A US Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft transits the Taiwan Strait in “international airspace.”
April 17, 2024: President Biden gives a speech in a presidential campaign stop at the United Steelworkers Headquarters in Pennsylvania titled “New Actions to Protect US Steel and Shipbuilding Industry from China’s Unfair Practices.”
April 17, 2024: Office of the USTR, following a review of a petition filed on March 12 by five US national labor unions, initiates a Section 301 investigation into “the PRC’s longstanding efforts to dominate the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors.” Beijing expresses strong dissatisfaction to the investigation.
April 19, 2024: G7 foreign ministers release a “Statement on Addressing Global Challenges, Fostering Partnerships” in which they “recognize the importance of constructive and stable relations with China” and reaffirm interest in “a balanced and reciprocal collaboration with China aimed at promoting global economic growth,” among other issues and concerns.
April 19, 2024: US Ambassador to the China Burns meets Special Envoy Zhai Jun of the Chinese Government on the Middle East Issue in Beijing.
April 21, 2024: US and 28 other navies gather at the Western Pacific Naval Symposium (WPNS) in Qingdao, China, where an updated Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES) and the forming of a Working Group on Unmanned Systems is adopted.
April 22, 2024: US-Philippine 39th Balikatan Exercise, joined in part by the French navy and set to conclude on May 10, kicks off in the South China Sea region.
April 23, 2024: President Biden signs into law a bill that would ban TikTok in the United States unless it is divested by its Chinese owner ByteDance within a year.
April 24, 2024: Department of State releases a Joint Statement on the Philippines-United States Bilateral Strategic Dialogue which reaffirms US support for the 2016 South China Sea Arbitration ruling concluded by the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
April 25, 2024: Department of Justice unseals an indictment of two Chinese nationals for crimes related to a conspiracy to illegally export US semiconductor manufacturing technology to “prohibited end users in China.”
April 25, 2024: Federal Communications Commission orders the US units of four Chinese telecom companies to discontinue fixed or mobile broadband operations within 60 days, as part of a larger net neutrality order.
April 26, 2024: Secretary of State Blinken travels from Shanghai to Beijing and meets separately with President Xi Jinping, Director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Foreign Affairs Commission and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong to follow up on commitments made at the Woodside Summit in November 2023, discuss “responsibly managing competition,” and address a range of other global concerns including Russia’s industrial base, the conflicts in Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, human rights, illicit drugs, and artificial intelligence.
April 26, 2024: Department of Homeland Security announces the establishment of the Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board to advise the Department and the broader public on the “safe and secure development and deployment of AI technology in our nation’s critical infrastructure” to stay ahead of potentially hostile nation-state actors such as the PRC.
April 26, 2024: Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress adopts a revised Customs Law that includes a new authorization for the State Council to impose retaliatory tariffs.
April 29, 2024: US and Taiwan start another in-person negotiating round for the US-Taiwan Initiative on 21st Century Trade in Taipei, Taiwan.
April 30, 2024: Department of Labor Deputy Undersecretary for International Affairs Thea Lee, testifying before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China, argues that “ongoing human and labor rights violations in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” make reliable audits “impossible.”
May 1, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken releases a statement encouraging the World Health Organization to reinstate an invitation to Taiwan to participate as an observer at the 77th World Health Assembly.
May 1, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury announces new actions to degrade Russia’s military-industrial base with nearly 300 new sanctions, expressing particular concern about entities based in the PRC.
May 1, 2024: U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti, testifying before Congress about a budget request, calls preparing U.S. military forces for “potential conflict with China” “critically important” and noted “I don’t see how cutting the size of our fleet and shorting AUKUS or AUKUS commitment will deter China.”
May 2, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice sentences the leader of one of the largest counterfeit trademark cases ever prosecuted in the U.S., whose lengthy operation introduced “tens of thousands of counterfeit and low-quality devices trafficked from China into the U.S. supply chain, jeopardizing both private-sector and public-sector users, including highly sensitive U.S. military applications like the support platforms of U.S. fighter jets and other military aircraft.”
May 2, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Navy Carlos del Toro, delivering a keynote address at Modern Day Marine 2024 in Washington, D.C., calls the People’s Republic of China “our pacing challenge…[that] continues to exert its excessive maritime claims through their navy, coast guard, and maritime militia.”
May 2, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin co-convenes a United States-Japan-Australia Trilateral Defense Ministerial Meeting in Hawaii with his two counterparts during which they discuss the “concerning and destabilizing conduct” by the People’s Republic of China in the South China Sea and reject any attempts to unilaterally change the status quo in the East and South China Seas.
May 2, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin meets with his Australian, Japan and Philippine counterparts in Hawaii, during which they emphasize their commitment to support “regional security and stability” and call on the People’s Republic of China to “abide by the final and legally binding” 2016 South China Sea Arbitration.
May 3, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, giving remarks at the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum, mentions that there is “no denying that China’s catch-up growth lifted hundreds of millions of people from poverty” and calling it one of the great global economic achievements of the past century, though also noting that China’s future growth is “far from certain.”
May 3, 2024: The American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States conclude a five-day, in-person negotiating round for the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade in Taipei, Taiwan.
May 3, 2024: Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti, speaking to sailors in Virginia about warfighting, lists the People’s Republic of China as one of several global actors who “desire to rewrite the global rules-based order for their own political, military, and economic interests” and it is our job to deter conflict and…to fight and win our Nation’s wars should deterrence fail.”
May 4, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, speaking at the FTWeekend Festival in Washington one month after President Joe Biden signed a law forcing TikTok to cut ties with its owner Beijing-based ByteDance, says it makes “all the sense in the world” for TikTok to divest and become American-owned.
May 6, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases the “International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy: Towards an Innovative, Secure, and Rights-Respecting Digital Future,” in which the People’s Republic of China is called the “broadest, most active, and most persistent cyber threat” to U.S. networks, being made up of both state-sponsored activity and PRC-linked actors who are also working to reshape norms governing cyberspace amidst surveillance and disinformation campaigns.
May 6-10, 2024: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Richard Verma travels to China, alongside a visit to the Philippines, to visit the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, the U.S. Consulates General in Shenyang, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, and members of the U.S. business community.
May 7, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense releases a notice on their support of the White House’s National Security Memorandum 22 on critical infrastructure, stating: “We know that the People’s Republic of China and Russia are actively targeting U.S. critical infrastructure to be poised to disrupt our society and interfere with DoD’s operations in a crisis.”
May 8, 2024: The guided-missile destroyer USS Halsey (DDG 97) conducts a routine transit through the Taiwan Strait “in accordance with international law.”
May 8, 2024: The U.S. Department of Commerce, as first reported by Financial Times, revokes “certain licenses for exports to Huawei” allowing American companies to supply Huawei with semiconductor chips.
May 8, 2024: U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Matthew Miller, in response to questions regarding the Hong Kong authorities banning the song “Glory to Hong Kong,” says the U.S. remains “seriously concerned about the continued erosion of protections for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Hong Kong, including the freedom of expression.”
May 8-9, 2024: U.S. Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy John Podesta and PRC Special Envoy for Climate Change Liu Zhenmin co-lead a meeting of the U.S.-China Working Group on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s in Washington, D.C.
May 9, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense releases its annual Freedom of Navigation Report for Fiscal Year 2023, in which five ‘Excessive Maritime Claims’ are listed against the People’s Republic of China—two more claims than any other claimant listed—all five of which are associated with “multiple operational challenges” and one of which being the only claim in this list noted as challenged jointly with international partners and allies.
May 9, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, providing remarks at the 2024 World Food Prize laureate announcement in Washington, D.C., “fondly” remembers Professor Yuan Longping of China, hailed as the father of hybrid rice, as one of two 2004 laureates being specially honored.
May 9, 2024: U.S. Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, in his remarks at the Australian Air and Space Conference, summarily argues that the U.S. strategy “should focus on confronting Chinese and Russian malign activity in the domain through protracted day to day competition, which is a preferable state, compared to crisis or conflict.”
May 9, 2024: The Department of Homeland Security, in partnership with other agencies, sentences a Chinese citizen, U.S. permanent resident, and billionaire to months in prison for making political contributions in the names of others, immigration fraud, and producing a false identification document.
May 9, 2024: U.S. Senior Official for the DPRK Jung Pak meets with PRC Special Representative on Korean Peninsula Affairs Liu Xiaoming in Tokyo, Japan, as a follow up to Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to China in late April 2024.
May 10, 2024: The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Halsey (DDG 97), as described in a comparatively extensive notice, asserts navigational rights and freedoms in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands and then continues operations with a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea.
May 13, 2024: U.S. National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard, speaking in a background press call on Biden Administration efforts to protect American workers and business from China’s unfair trade practices, says “China is simply too big to play by its own rules.”
May 13, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden issues an order arguing the real estate acquisition by MineOne Partners Limited, a company majority owned by Chinese nationals, is a national security threat as the company prepares to conduct “specialized cryptocurrency mining operations in close proximity” to Frances E. Warren Air Force Base on that real estate.
May 13, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a celebratory note on the Department’s record-breaking number of visitor visas successfully issued, with China being listed as one of the major issue points of visitor visa and border crossing cards in the first half of fiscal year 2024.
May 13, 2024: U.S. Consul General Gregory May at the U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau provides a keynote address at a think tank event on the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy since 2020, during which he describes the U.S. relationship with Hong Kong as having three components: “very good people-to-people ties…productive business and trade cooperation, and…a very challenging relationship with the Hong Kong government.”
May 14, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden initiates actions to protect American workers and business from “China’s unfair trade practices concerning technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation,” leading to the increase of tariffs on $18 billion of imports from China. Directly after his announcement, he gives lengthy remarks regarding the new actions which include comparisons of the U.S. and Chinese markets and a conversation held with President Xi Jinping on the issue.
May 14, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo releases a statement on President Joe Biden’s actions concerning China’s unfair trade practices, adding that “[w]e know the PRC’s playbook – we’ve seen their non-market actions on solar and steel – and cannot allow China to undermine U.S. supply chains by flooding the market with artificially cheap products” that harm the U.S.
May 14, 2024: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative releases a four-year review of the actions taken in the Section 301 investigation against China’s technology transfer-related acts, policies, and practices, summarizing that these actions have been “effective,” especially in diversifying the supply chain, but, “[i]nstead of pursuing fundamental reform, the Government of China has persisted and even become more aggressive, particularly through cyber intrusions and cybertheft, in its attempts to acquire and absorb foreign technology.”
May 14, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen releases a statement at end of the Section 301 review, recommitting to continued dialogues directly with Chinese counterparts as these problems of overcapacity and macroeconomic imbalances “will not be solved in a day.”
May 14, 2024: U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, following the release of the statutory review of the tariff actions in the Section 301 investigation, remarks that “President Biden is directing me to take further action to encourage the elimination of the People’s Republic of China’s unfair technology transfer-related policies and practices,” recommends that current tariffs should remain, and is adding or increasing tariffs to certain products under the direction of President Biden. In a press briefing at the White House, Tai notes the entire Biden-Harris administration has “been very, very clear about the sobriety with which we approach the U.S.-China trade and economic relationship. It needs to be fair.”
May 14, 2024: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Technology and National Security Tarun Chhabra and Department of State Acting Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology Seth Center lead an interagency U.S. delegation to meet with a PRC delegation in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss artificial intelligence risk and safety.
May 15, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, responding to a question during a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, again clarifies that Washington’s concern is “not about China providing weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine…China’s held back from that,” but is about the “support that China’s providing to Russia to rebuild its defense industrial base”—namely, machine tools and microelectronics—in ways that are making a difference to Russia’s campaign against Ukraine.
May 16, 2024: Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner speaks via teleconference with PRC Major General Li Bin, Director of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation, to discuss issues of mutual concern and maintain “open lines of communication in defense channels to reduce the risks of miscommunication.”
May 16, 2024: During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on a budget request for the Department of the Navy, China is regularly mentioned, being called “the pacing challenge” and repeatedly referred to as “the world’s largest ship builder.”
May 16, 2024: National Economic Advisor Lael Brainard delivers remarks at a Center for American Progress event centered around responding to the challenges of China’s industrial overcapacity.
May 16, 2024: The Biden-Harris Administration announces new actions to “strengthen American solar manufacturing and protect businesses and workers from China’s unfair trade actions.”
May 16, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement expressing deep concerns over “reports that PRC citizen journalist Ms. Zhang Zhan has disappeared following her expected release from Shanghai Women’s Prison” three days prior and reiterating U.S. concerns about the “arbitrary nature of her detention and authorities’ mistreatment of her.”
May 17, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces the arrest of two Chinese nationals based in California, alleging they played leading roles in a scheme to launder at least $73 million in proceeds through shell companies from cryptocurrency investment scams.
May 17, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security adds 26 additional PRC-based textile companies to Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List, with Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas noting that the U.S. will continue to “hold the PRC accountable for their exploitation and abuse of the Uyghur people.”
May 19, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken releases a congratulatory message to Dr. Lai Ching-te on his inauguration as Taiwan’s fifth democratically elected president and commemorating President Tsai Ing-wen for her role in strengthening U.S.-Taiwan ties.
May 20, 2024: The U.S. Embassy in Wuhan, China, opens up business and tourism visa interviews “to anyone applying in China” as part of efforts to support people-to-people engagement with the U.S.
May 21-23, 2024: Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Industry & Analysis Grant Harris participates in the 14th annual United States-China Tourism Leadership Summit in Xi’an, China, making him the highest-ranking official ever to lead the American delegation to this Summit, which Harris calls “an important vehicle” in enhancing tourism back to pre-pandemic levels.
May 22, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, responding to a press question on overcapacity, says that “China’s distorted practices, nonmarket economic practices, subsidizing at dramatic scale industries where they are going to produce so much quantity of good and then flood the global markets with it threatens to create global imbalances that are not stabilizing.”
May 22, 2024: U.S. naval forces conduct operations in the South China Sea in partnership with the Royal Netherlands Navy as part of efforts to maintain “stability and free use of vital sea lanes in the Indo-Pacific.”
May 22, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces the arrest of two members of a transnational money laundering organization related to the importation of illegal drugs into the U.S. in coordination with co-conspirators in China.
May 22, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces the guilty pleas of two men in Florida who defrauded a U.S. biochemical company and exported millions of dollars worth of biochemical products to China using falsified export documents.
May 23, 2024: U.S. Department of State China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert and PRC Director-General for Boundary and Ocean Affairs Hong Liang hold the second round of consultations on bilateral maritime affairs virtually to discuss the “current situation in the South China Sea and East China Sea, as well as other maritime issues,” and to reaffirm the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
May 23, 2024: Jeanne Pryor, Deputy Assistant Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for the Middle East, testifies before the House in a budget request that China is one of three “malign influences” that “promulgate misinformation” and “take advantage of the unpopularity of U.S. policy in the region.”
May 23, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, speaking ahead of the G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meetings, lists “China’s industrial overcapacity” as one of three priority areas for the United States, adding that it is “not a bilateral issue between the U.S. and China.”
May 23, 2024: Robert Silvers, Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans at the Department of Homeland Security, releases a blog post discussing the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) in which he announces the Forced Labor Enforcement Task Force’s plans to “further scale up” efforts to expand the UFLPA Entity List.
May 24, 2024: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative extends certain exclusions in the Section 301 tariffs investigation, now extending them through May 31, 2025.
May 24, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces the guilty plea of a Hong Kong-born, naturalized U.S. citizen and former Central Intelligence Agency officer who admitted to, along with a co-conspirator, gathering and delivering “a large volume of classified U.S. national defense information” to the People’s Republic of China Shanghai State Security Bureau starting in 2001.
May 25, 2024: The U.S. Department of Defense releases a short statement dedicated to expressing confidence in the current U.S. force posture and operations in the Indo-Pacific, also stating they have “closely monitored joint military drills by the People’s Liberation Army in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan.”
May 25, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement expressing deep concern over the People’s Liberation Army joint military drills in the Taiwan Strait and around Taiwan, urging Beijing “to act with restraint” and reiterating the U.S. commitment to its “longstanding one China policy.”
May 28, 2024: U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai releases an op-ed in The Financial Times in which she calls China’s trade-related behavior “monopolistic” and warns the need to remain “clear eyed that China is not just a trading partner, but is pursuing global dominance across key economic sectors,” which is why the Biden-Harris administration—soon followed by other countries—has been increasing tariffs.
May 29, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces the successful completion of an operation to dismantle a residential proxy service botnet, known as “911 S5,” created and operated by a PRC national, that is responsible for cyberattacks, large-scale fraud, and child exploitation, among other violations.
May 29-30, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng provide video remarks to the U.S.-China High-Level Event on Subnational Climate Action, hosted by the California-China Climate Institute in Berkeley, California, each encouraging bilateral collaboration and exchanges on climate.
May 30, 2024: Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer meets with People’s Republic of China Executive Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Ma Zhaoxu in Washington, D.C. to discuss both areas of difference and areas in which the two countries can advance cooperation.
May 30, 2024: Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell hosts PRC Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu for an official visit in Washington, D.C. during which they mutually reaffirmed the importance of open channels of communications at all times and discussed a variety of “regional and global issues, including areas of difference and areas of cooperation that matter most to the American people and the world.”
May 30, 2024: U.S. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo, speaking at a public event with German business leaders, calls China Russia’s main partner in the Ukraine crisis that must be addressed: “Our economies are intertwined with China’s. We do not seek to decouple from China. We want a healthy economic relationship with China that benefits both sides. But if China does not put a stop to the trade of dual-use goods to Russia, we will have to take action to hold them accountable.”
May 31, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin meets with PRC Minister of National Defense Dong Jun in Singapore on the margins of the Shangri-La Dialogue to discuss bilateral defense relations and communicate points of concern and cooperation.
May 31, 2024: The Department of Homeland Security arraigns five Chinese nationals on federal charges alleging they operated a large-scale, trans-Pacific counterfeit Apple device scheme resulting in at least $12.3 million in losses.
May 31, 2024: U.S. National Security Agency Director and head of Cyber Command Gen. Timothy Haugh, speaking in a television interview, says “[w]e’re really seeing China be very aggressive” in targeting foreign computer networks and the U.S. is “rapidly working with any number of nations to expose wherever we can…to take advantage of that.”
May 31, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement expressing its deep concern over the “guilty verdicts announced in the National Security Law trial of pro-democracy organizers in Hong Kong,” calling for their immediate release of “these unjustly detained individuals,” and announcing new visa restrictions on “PRC and Hong Kong officials responsible.’
May 31, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking to the media after a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, shares what he has told Chinese counterparts in Beijing: “China cannot expect on the one hand to improve relations with countries of Europe while on the other hand fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War.”
June 2, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin co-hosts the United States-Japan-Republic of Korea Trilateral Ministerial Meeting with his two counterparts in Singapore and releases a statement in which the three representatives reaffirmed their strong opposition to “changes in status quo in the water of the Indo-Pacific” as well as their positions on the “dangerous and aggressive behavior” by the People’s Republic of China amidst “unlawful maritime claims” in the South China Sea.
June 2, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin meets with Southeast Asian defense ministers in Singapore, reiterating concerns about “coercive activity” conducted by the People’s Republic of China in the South China Sea and calling on Beijing to abide by the legally binding 2016 Arbitration.
June 3, 2024: The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati Prabhakar holds an interview with The Washington Post to explain “Washington’s new hard-line consensus on China.”
June 4, 2024: FBI Director Christopher Wray, speaking before the Senate, explains that funding is necessary to “continue countering the threat posed by the PRC—a government sparing no expense in its quest to hack, lie, cheat, and steal its way to the top as a global superpower, and to undermine our democracy and our economic success.”
June 4, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement in commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the “Tiananmen Square massacre,” reaffirming the U.S. commitment to promoting “accountability for PRC human rights abuses both within and outside its borders.”
June 5, 2024: FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Bryan Vorndran, delivering a keynote address at the 2024 Boston Conference on Cyber Security, directly calls China “the most prolific threat” in cybersecurity, emphasizing the “hundreds of examples” of intellectual property or personally identifiable information theft conducted by Chinese actors.
June 5, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice charges an American in New York with allegations of illegally shipping two species of protected wildlife turtles from the U.S. to China for the global pet trade black market.
June 6, 2024: U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Financial Markets Nicholas Tabor delivers public remarks in Cambridge, Massachusetts, summarizing the progress made by the Financial Working Group co-chaired by the U.S. Treasury and People’s Bank of China over the last year.
June 8, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron release the French-American Roadmap, which lists “strong concern about…dual-use materials and components for military production from businesses in the People’s Republic of China” being used by Russia against Ukraine.
June 8, 2024: U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanual Macron hold a joint press conference in Paris, during which they express concerns about “China’s unfair trade practices, which bring about overcapacity” and require a coordinated response to.
June 9, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel holds an interview with The Wire China to discuss “Seeing China as a Strategic Adversary.”
June 11, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice sentences a Chinese citizen and a Texas citizen over a conspiracy to evade economic sanctions and sell sanctioned Iranian petroleum to buyers in the People’s Republic of China.
June 11, 2024: The Department of Homeland Security adds three China-based companies—a seafood, an aluminum, and a footwear company—to the Uygur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List.
June 12, 2024: Michael Camilleri, Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that U.S. foreign policy priorities and approach is in “clear contrast” to that of the People’s Republic of China.
June 13, 2024: U.S. Consulate General in Wuhan welcomes its new Consul General Christopher Green, who comments that it is an “exciting time as the consulate expands its consular, trade, culture, and education programs in Central China.”
June 13, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice accepts the guilty plea of a non-national resident of Mainland China who, in collaboration with his Chinese co-defendant and ownership partner in a PRC-based battery business, conspired to send trade secrets that belonged to a leading U.S.-based electric vehicle company.
June 13, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, speaking at the Economic Club of New York, calls the U.S. and Chinese economies and their interactions “crucial to global growth,” believes the U.S. has “nothing to fear from healthy economic competition,” denies that “decoupling” would be in any way beneficial for the U.S. economy, and expresses particular concern about China’s “enduring macroeconomic imbalances” and “unfair trade practices.”
June 14, 2024: The Group of Seven leaders release the G7 Apulia Leaders’ Communiqué, which extensively acknowledges China’s importance to, influence within, and supposed responsibilities in sectors across the globe, including but not limited to: cyberspace, international peace and security, global trade, maritime affairs, human rights, Russia’s military industrial base, and its cross-strait relations with Taiwan.
June 14, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen states that the outcome of the G7 Summit affirms that her repeatedly stated concerns on China’s overcapacity are “widely shared across the G7,” clarifying that the U.S. “seeks a healthy economic relationship with China, but this requires competing on a level playing field.”
June 14, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns gives a commencement speech to students at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, emphasizing the “hope” he still has for U.S.-China relations in spite of how “the most important relationship between two countries in the world today” was pulled apart over the last few years, also challenging the students to make positive progress in this fundamental bilateral relationship going forward by working with one another with a common purpose.
June 14, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice sentences a Washington-based home goods company who pleaded guilty to falsely declaring five shipping containers of products that were harvested and produced in China, not in Malaysia, to evade oversigned of Chinese-harvested timber and import duties.
June 14, 2024: The U.S. 7th Fleet conducts a maneuvering exercise with the French Navy in the Philippine Sea in “support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
June 15, 2024: A senior official of the Biden-Harris administration, during a background press call made during the second day of the G7 meeting, mentions a collaborative defense against China’s current economic practices several times, once noting how “it’s more clear that President Xi’s ambition is to restore China’s dominance, at least in the Indo-Pacific, possibly beyond,” through economic and technological primacy. The official also acknowledges a recent shift made in addressing China, stating that “some of China’s actions to support the Russian war machine are now not just threatening Ukraine’s existence, but European security and transatlantic security” which has driven Washington to take more serious measures against China.
June 16-17, 2024: The U.S. Navy conducts a Maritime Cooperative Activity with their Canadian, Japanese and Philippine counterparts in the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone in the South China Sea to demonstrate their “collective commitment to strengthen regional and international cooperation in the maritime domain.”
June 17, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement condemning the “unjust sentencing” of activists Huang Xueqin (Sophia Huang) and Wang Jianbing, calling the sentences “the PRC’s continued efforts to intimidate and silence civil society.”
June 17, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases a statement on “U.S. Support for the Philippines in the South China Sea,” condemning China’s “escalatory and irresponsible actions” keeping humanitarian supplies from Philippine service members at the BDP Sierra Madre and China’s “consistent disregard” for international law in the South China Sea.
June 18, 2024: The U.S. Department of Justice announces a superseding indictment involving a partnership between Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and a Chinese criminal syndicate operating in Los Angeles and China to launder drug money underground, thus perpetuating the import of narcotics into the U.S.
June 18-20, 2024: The U.S. Navy conducts bilateral operations with the Royal Canadian Navy in the South China Sea “as a demonstration of our shared commitment to the rules-based international order.”
June 19, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks on the phone with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique Manalo about China’s “dangerous and irresponsible” escalatory actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea.
June 19-20, 2024: White House Director of National Drug Control Policy Dr. Rahul Gupta leads an interagency delegation of senior officials to Beijing to discuss counternarcotics cooperation, meeting separately with State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong, members of the shipping industry, as well as the PRC Minister of Sport to discuss zero tolerance for sports doping.
June 20, 2024: U.S. Mission China announces structural changes in provincial jurisdiction of their consulates and embassy, confident that they will “bring about new opportunities and stronger regional connections for the respective provinces and consulates.”
June 20, 2024: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, reiterates the United States’ deep concerns over how China is “providing critical support to Russia’s defense industrial base…hat has enabled Russia to keep that defense industrial base going, to keep the war machine going, to keep the war going.” “[I]t can’t,” Blinken says, “on the one hand, say that it wants better relations with countries in Europe while at the same time fueling the biggest security threat to Europe as a whole since the end of the Cold War…So if China in particular, which professes to have a strong interest in ending the war – if it really means it, it will stop fueling the war machine.”
June 20, 2024: Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, while outlining the strategic guidance to guide critical infrastructure security and resilience efforts for both the public and private sectors, lists “Addressing cyber and other threats posed by the People’s Republic of China” as the first priority area.
June 20, 2024: The U.S. Department of the Treasury delivers its semiannual Report to Congress on Macroeconomic and Foreign Exchange Policies of Major Trading Partners of the United States, listing China as one of seven countries on its “Monitoring List” and reiterating Washington’s call for increased transparency from China.
June 20, 2024: U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen, speaking at a press conference on a new advisory for financial institutions to help them detect financial flows linked to illicit fentanyl trade, describes counternarcotics as a focus in the U.S.-China bilateral relationship, especially as China is “the key source of the precursor chemicals used to manufacture fentanyl.”
June 21, 2024: The American Institute in Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States host consultations in Taipei, Taiwan, with representatives from the U.S. Department of State and the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss expanding Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international fora like the United Nations system.
June 21, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, speaking in an interview with BBC, says China has “agreed to increase our military-to-military communications” to prevent misunderstandings, also noting that Washington has “warned the Chinese not to involve themselves in our election in any way, shape or form.”
June 22, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, while delivering a commencement address at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, says “[w]e can stand up to China, and we can engage in responsible diplomacy with China,” while emphasizing that is what President Joe Biden also believes.
June 24, 2024: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell delivers opening remarks at the launch of the Council on Foreign Relations’ China Strategy Initiative on sustaining U.S. strategy in the Indo-Pacific.
June 24, 2024: U.S. Mission China releases a second video in its U.S.-South China Exchanges video series, which “highlights pivotal stories of cooperation and shared accomplishments” over the last 200 years.
June 24, 2024: U.S. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, speaking in an interview with The Washington Post, reiterates that the U.S. is “in a space race with the Chinese, and that they are very good…and they execute on what they say.”
June 25, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, speaking in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, says that, though Beijing routinely says they’re in favor of people-to-people engagement, “they’re taking dramatic steps to make it impossible.” Burns elaborates, “I’ve been concerned for my two-plus years here about the very aggressive Chinese government…efforts to denigrate America, to tell a distorted story about American society, American history, American policy. It happens every day on all the networks available to the government here, and there’s a high degree of anti-Americanism online.”
June 26, 2024: The U.S. Department of State releases the 2023 Report on International Religious Freedom, produced under the direction of Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Rashad Hussain, who notes the report continues to highlight “ongoing crimes against humanity and genocide the Chinese Government is perpetrating.”
June 26, 2024: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin holds a call with Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro Jr., during which they discuss the “dangerous actions” conducted by the People’s Republic of China on June 17 against “lawful operations by the Philippines.”
June 26, 2024: U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan holds a call with Philippine National Security Advisor Eduardo Año, during which they shared concerns over the People’s Republic of China’s “dangerous and escalatory actions against the Philippines’ lawful maritime operations” in the South China Sea.
June 26, 2024: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announces that PetroChina International America, a subsidiary of oil and gas company PetroChina International Co. Ltd., has agreed to pay a fine and monetary forfeiture totaling $14.5 million for violations of U.S. export law.
June 27, 2024: U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell holds a call with People’s Republic of China Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu to discuss areas of both cooperation and differences as part of “ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication.”
June 27, 2024: Greg Howell, Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development, speaking before the House on socialism in Central America and the Caribbean, calls China a “malign actor” that is supporting Nicaragua’s current repressive authoritarian rule.
June 27, 2024: U.S. Consul General Gregory May at the U.S. Consulate General Hong Kong & Macau, speaking at the Independence Day Reception in Hong Kong, reminisces on the more than two centuries of connected history between the U.S. and Hong Kong, also emphasizing the several points of commonalities and strongly shared interests that remain therein today.
June 27, 2024: U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Russia’s war in Ukraine, says “I think the Chinese have miscalculated…did not understand the core value that we place in our current world on peace and unity in Europe itself,” adding that “China is not exhibiting the behavior of a neutral country.”
This chronology was prepared by Alec Caruana, ICAS Part-Time Research Assistant (January-August 2023), Jessica Martin, ICAS Research Associate (September-December 2023), and Amanda Jin, ICAS Part-Time Research Assistant (September-December 2023).
July 1, 2023: CIA Director Burns says that decoupling from China would be “foolish,” but that the US must work to diversify its supply chains.
July 2, 2023: Drug Enforcement Administration head Anne Milgram says that China is not cooperating enough on combatting the flow of fentanyl into the US via Mexico.
July 3, 2023: China’s Ministry of Commerce announces that a licensing system on gallium and germanium exports, key components in chip production, will come into effect Aug. 1 in order to “safeguard national security and interests.”
July 5, 2023: Beijing Municipal Bureau of Statistics fines Beijing arm of the Mintz Group for unapproved “foreign-related statistical investigations” across 37 projects conducted during the March 2019 to July 2022 period.
July 6–9, 2023: Treasury Secretary Yellen visits China where she has “frank, pragmatic, in-depth and constructive” meetings with top Chinese officials in charge of economic affairs.
July 10-14: China conducts a week of naval and air exercises in the Taiwan Strait.
July 11, 2023: Microsoft reveals that a Chinese hacking group gained access to US government email accounts, including those of the ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kritenbrink, but the National Security Council reassures that no classified information was affected.
July 12, 2023: China’s Embassy in the Philippines calls Washington the “mastermind” of the seven-year-old arbitration over the South China Sea and accuses the US of coercing its allies “to gang up against China…and force China into accepting the award.”
July 13, 2023: Secretary of State Blinken meets with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Jakarta for “candid and productive” talks.
July 13, 2023: US Navy P-8A Poseidon patrol and reconnaissance aircraft transits Taiwan Strait.
July 16–19, 2023: Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry visits China where he holds meetings with top Chinese climate officials to discuss opportunities for cooperation.
July 17, 2023: House Select Committee on China holds a hearing titled “Risky Business: Growing Peril for American Companies in China.”
July 18-20, 2023: Henry Kissinger meets President Xi and other senior officials in Beijing at a time when almost all incumbent US government officials are frozen out of contact with Xi. XI tells Kissinger that US-China ties are at a crossroads.
July 18, 2023: House Intelligence Committee holds closed hearing on the “People’s Republic of China Threats to the Homeland.”
July 20, 2023: House Select Committee on China holds hearing on “The Biden Administration’s PRC Strategy.”
July 21, 2023: During a fireside chat at the Aspen Security Forum, Secretary of State Blinken calls on Beijing to use its “unique influence” to bring about North Korea’s denuclearization, and not to take US efforts to develop South Korea and Japan’s defense capabilities as directed at China.
July 25, 2023: Qin Gang is replaced in as China’s foreign minister by his predecessor Wang Yi.
July 26, 2023: Secretary of State Blinken criticizes China’s “problematic behavior…in the region” in remarks during a visit to Tonga.
July 26, 2023: Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds hearing on “US Economic Security to Address Economic Coercion and Increasing Competitiveness” where Treasury Undersecretary Jay Shambaugh testifies that the Department “will use a suite of tools” to protect US national security vis-à-vis China.
July 26, 2023: House Select Committee on China holds a hearing titled “Commanding Heights: Ensuring US Leadership in the Critical and Emerging Technologies of the 21st Century.”
July 26, 2023: House Committee on Energy and Commerce holds a hearing titled “Self-Driving Vehicle Legislative Framework: Enhancing Safety, Improving Lives and Mobility, and Beating China.”
July 28, 2023: White House announces $345 million military aid package for Taiwan—including anti-air and anti-armored munitions—through the fast-track ‘Presidential Drawdown Authority,” prompting China to accuse the US of turning the island into a “powder keg and ammunition depot” a day later.
Aug. 1, 2023: Department of Homeland Security bans imports from two additional Chinese companies through the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List
Aug. 3, 2023: Two US Navy sailors charged with providing sensitive military information to China.
Aug. 7, 2023: President Biden signs legislation to implement the “21st-Century” Trade Initiative with Taiwan.
Aug. 9, 2023: President Biden signs executive order requiring US persons to notify the Treasury Department of certain transactions and investments in China, particularly targeting those in high-tech sectors such as semiconductors, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies with potential military applications.
Aug. 10, 2023: President Biden calls China’s slowing economy “a ticking time bomb” at a campaign fundraiser event.
Aug. 10, 2023: China expresses “serious concerns” with the White House’s recent Executive Order and accuses the US of pursuing “technology hegemony.”
Aug. 11, 2023: China’s Ministry of State Security arrests a 52-year-old worker for a military-industrial company on suspicion of selling military secrets to the CIA.
Aug. 11, 2023: China’s Ministry of Commerce publishes a report attacking Washington’s failed compliance with World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.
Aug. 13, 2023: Taiwanese vice president and presidential candidate in next year’s elections William Lai Ching-te stops over in New York en route to Paraguay, prompting condemnation by China as a “troublemaker through and through.”
Aug. 16, 2023: Intel scraps its attempted acquisition of Tower Semiconductor after China’s anti-trust regulator stalls on the deal, in effect, signaling its refusal to approve the deal.
Aug. 18, 2023: Commerce Department issues a final determination in a year-long investigation into solar tariff contravention which finds five Chinese solar panel companies guilty of skirting said tariffs by shipping their products through Southeast Asia.
Aug. 19, 2023: In response to Lai’s visit to the US, China conducts military drills in the Taiwan Strait as a “stern warning to the collusion of ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists with foreign elements and their provocations.”
Aug. 19, 2023: US, Japan, and South Korea issue Camp David Principles and a Commitment to Consult pledge on regional challenges during a trilateral leaders summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in rural Maryland.
Aug. 21, 2023: Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security removes 27 Chinese companies from its “Unverified List.”
Aug. 22, 2023: Commerce Secretary Raimondo meets with Chinese ambassador to the US Xie Feng ahead of her planned trip to China.
Aug. 22, 2023: State Department imposes visa restrictions on Chinese officials in Tibet for their involvement in forced assimilation in government-run boarding schools in the province.
Aug. 23, 2023: State Department approves arms sale to Taiwan of $500 million worth of F-16 Infrared Search and Track (IRST) systems and related equipment.
Aug. 24, 2023: House Committee on Natural Resources holds a hearing titled “Peace Through Strength: The Strategic Importance of the Pacific Islands to US-led Global Security.”
Aug. 27-30, 2023: Commerce Secretary Raimondo visits China for four days to meet with counterparts, and the two sides agree to new consultations on trade and export control systems.
Aug. 29, 2023: White House temporarily extends a science and technology agreement with China by six months to provide time for its renegotiation with stakeholder input.
Aug. 30, 2023: State Department notifies Congress of an $80 million arms deal to Taiwan through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, a scheme usually reserved for sales to sovereign states.
Sept. 3, 2023: US President Joe Biden says he is “disappointed” that Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the 18th G20 Summit, but said that he is “going to get to see” the Chinese president, presumably, later in the year.
Sept. 4, 2023: US Navy destroyer USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114) conducts a “bilateral sail” with Philippine Navy guided-missile frigate BRP Jose Rizal (FF-150) in the South China Sea “to enhance the interoperability between the two navies.”
Sept. 6, 2023: US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) adds 42 Chinese companies to its Entity List, effective Oct. 6, for supplying US-origin integrated circuits to Russian intermediaries and end-users.
Sept. 7, 2023: US Vice President Kamala Harris attends the East Asia Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, where she “emphasized that freedom of navigation and overflight must be respected in the East China Sea and South China Sea” and “reaffirmed US support for the 2016 UN arbitral tribunal ruling and noted this ruling is final and legally binding.”
Sept. 9, 2023: US Navy destroyer USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114) and Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ottawa (FFH 341) conduct “a routine Taiwan Strait transit…through waters where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”
Sept. 12, 2023: Department of Defense releases its 2023 Cyber Strategy Summary in which the PRC is listed as the first among several state and non-state actors in a “contested cyberspace.”
Sept. 12, 2023: US Navy destroyer USS Ralph Johnson (DDG 114) and Royal Canadian Navy frigate HMCS Ottawa (FFH 341) operate in the South China Sea as part of a joint exercise.
Sept. 18, 2023: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets PRC Vice President Han Zheng on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
Sept. 19, 2023: President Biden delivers remarks to the 78th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), and reiterates that the US seeks to “responsibly manage the competition between our countries so it does not tip into conflict” and seeks “de-risking, not decoupling with China.”
Sept. 19, 2023: US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry meets PRC Vice President Han Zheng on the margins of the 78th UNGA, where the two sides “discussed the critical importance of bilateral and multilateral efforts to address the climate crisis, including to promote a successful COP 28.”
Sept. 21, 2023: US Assistant Secretary of Defense Ely Ratner tells the House Armed Services Committee that the Department of Defense is working with other US agencies and US “allies and friends” to “strengthen deterrence across the Taiwan Strait.”
Sept. 22, 2023: US Department of Commerce releases the final rule implementing the national security guardrails of the CHIPS and Science Act, including the rules that prohibit recipients of CHIPS funds from materially expanding semiconductor manufacturing capacity in China.
Sept. 22, 2023: Defense officials from the US and the PRC hold a hybrid in-person and virtual meeting to discuss the Department’s recently released 2023 DOD Cyber Strategy Unclassified Summary and to engage in “substantive discussion on a range of cyber-related topics.”
Sept. 25, 2023: Department of Commerce’s BIS adds 11 entities based in China to the Entity List for national security concerns, including implication in “a conspiracy to violate US export controls.”
Sept. 26, 2023: Department of State, together with the departments of the Treasury, Commerce, Homeland Security, and Labor and the Office of the US Trade Representative, issues an Addendum to the 2021 Updated Xinjiang Supply Chain Business Advisory to “call attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and the evidence of widespread use of forced labor there.”
Sept. 27, 2023: US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency, and Federal Bureau of Investigation, joined by Japan National Police Agency and Japan National Center of Incident Readiness and Strategy for Cybersecurity, publish a “Joint Cybersecurity Advisory” about “malicious activity by People’s Republic of China (PRC)-linked cyber actors known as BlackTech.”
Sept. 28, 2023: Department of State’s Global Engagement Center releases a special report on “How the People’s Republic of China Seeks to Reshape the Global Information Environment.”
Sept. 29, 2023: Department of State introduces new China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for China and Taiwan, Mark Lambert, who is to “oversee the Office of China Coordination and the Office of Taiwan Coordination in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs.”
Oct. 3, 2023: Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions 28 individuals and entities involved with the manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and MDMA precursors. Alongside, the Department of Justice announces eight indictments charging China-based companies and their employees with “crimes relating to fentanyl and methamphetamine production, distribution of synthetic opioids, and sales resulting from precursor chemicals.”
Oct. 10, 2023: China’s Ministry of Commerce announces restrictions, starting Dec. 1, on the export of several categories of high-purity natural and synthetic graphite materials vital to the clean tech and electric vehicle (EV) industries.
Oct. 12, 2023: US Navy P-8A Poseidon aircraft transits the Taiwan Strait in international airspace to “demonstrate the United States” commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.”
Oct. 17, 2023: Department of Commerce’s BIS adds 13 Chinese companies to the Entity List for aiding the AI capabilities of China’s military and high-tech surveillance sector and, thus, “acting contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”
Oct. 17, 2023: Department of Commerce’s BIS tightens export controls on advanced semiconductor and manufacturing equipment as well as supercomputing items to China.
Oct. 17, 2023: Department of Defense releases “a collection of declassified images and videos depicting 15 recent cases of coercive and risky operational behavior by the PLA against US aircraft operating lawfully in international airspace in the East and South China Sea regions.”
Oct. 19, 2023: Department of Defense releases its annual report on “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.”
Oct. 22, 2023: Department of State releases a statement on “US Support for our Philippine Allies in the Face of Repeated PRC Harassment in the South China Sea.”
Oct. 23, 2023: US and PRC hold first meeting of the Economic Working Group, “which serves as an ongoing channel to discuss and facilitate progress on bilateral economic policy matters.”
Oct. 25, 2023: US and PRC hold first meeting of the Financial Working Group, “which serves as an ongoing channel for both countries to discuss financial policy matters and cooperation on common challenges.”
Oct. 25, 2023: California Gov. Gavin Newsom meets Chinese President Xi in Beijing. Newsom, joined by US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, also meets China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice President Han Zheng and signs a new climate-focused Memorandum of Understanding with National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie.
Oct. 26, 2023: US Indo-Pacific Command releases a statement saying that “a People’s Republic of China J-11 pilot executed an unsafe intercept of a US Air Force B-52 aircraft” on Oct. 24, 2023 while the latter was “lawfully conducting routine operations over the South China Sea in international airspace.”
Oct. 29, 2023: Department of Defense’s principal director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Xanthi Carras attends the 10th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, with a view to restarting direct military-to-military contact between the US and PRC.
Nov. 1, 2023: Destroyer from the US Navy 7th Fleet and a frigate from the Royal Canadian Navy jointly conduct a “routine Taiwan Strait transit through waters where high-seas freedoms of navigation and overflight apply in accordance with international law.”
Nov. 1-2, 2023: Government representatives from the US and China attend the AI Safety Summit convened by the UK in Bletchley Park and are listed as participants who adhere to The Bletchley Declaration.
Nov. 2, 2023: Speaking at an Asia Society event, Secretary of the Treasury Yellen delivers remarks on the “Biden Administration’s Economic Approach Toward the Indo-Pacific” in which she reiterated how “the United States does not seek to decouple from China.”
Nov. 3, 2023: US Navy destroyer USS Dewey conducts a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea near the Spratly Islands.
Nov. 3, 2023: US Department of State China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert holds “substantive, constructive, and candid discussions on a range of maritime issues” with China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director-General for Boundary and Ocean Affairs Hong Liang.
Nov. 4-7, 2023: US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Kerry and China’s Special Envoy for Climate Change Xie Zhenhua meet at Sunnylands, California, where they sign the Sunnylands Agreement on “Enhancing Cooperation to Address the Climate Crisis.” (The statement was released by the US on Nov. 14, 2023, local time and by China on Nov. 15, 2023, local time.)
Nov. 6, 2023: Ambassador to the PRC Nicholas Burns leads the first official US representation at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai.
Nov. 6, 2023: Special Advisor on International Disability Rights Sara Minkara and Department of Labor Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy Taryn Williams meet the China Disabled Persons” Federation (CDPF) to resume the US-China Coordination Meeting on Disability.
Nov. 7, 2023: Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Mallory Stewart meets PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director-General of Arms Control Sun Xiaobo and holds “a candid and in-depth discussion on issues related to arms control and nonproliferation.”
Nov. 7, 2023: It is reported that the office of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made a formal request to meet with Austin’s Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of the upcoming ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM+) in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Nov. 12, 2023: In a news interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation,” White House National Security Adviser Sullivan says that reestablishing US-China military ties “has been a priority for President Biden” so as to reduce “miscalculations” and secure US national security interests.
Nov. 14, 2023: US Presidential Climate Envoy Kerry and Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua jointly release the “Sunnylands Statement on Enhancing Cooperation to Address the Climate Crisis,” committing both countries to deeper cooperation on methane reductions.
Nov. 15, 2023: President Biden and Chinese President Xi have a “candid,” “in-depth,” and “constructive” conversation on the bilateral relationship and a range of global issues in Woodside, CA. They agree to promote and strengthen bilateral dialogue and cooperation in areas AI and counternarcotics; resume high-level communication between the two militaries; and work toward a significant further increase in scheduled passenger flights, among others.
Nov. 16, 2023: China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi gives a readout on the significance and features of the Xi-Biden meeting to the press, in which he describes the meeting as strategic and historic as well as one that provides stewardship.
Nov. 16, 2023: US Vice-President Kamala Harris meets President Marcos of the Philippines during which she “reiterated the United States stands shoulder-to-shoulder in defending the Philippines’ sovereign rights and jurisdiction in the South China Sea” and reaffirmed the United States’ defense commitment under the 1951 US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty.
Nov. 16, 2023: Secretary of Commerce Raimondo and China’s Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao hold first ministerial meeting following the Xi-Biden meeting in California and conduct “pragmatic, constructive and fruitful communication on China-US economic and trade relations and economic and trade issues of common concern.”
Nov. 16, 2023: President Xi delivers a speech at a welcome dinner by friendly organizations in the US, where he champions people-to-people ties as the foundation of China-US relations.
Nov. 16, 2023: President Biden provides remarks and holds a press conference following the conclusion of meetings with President Xi in which he details the main accomplishments and outcomes of the “candid,” “constructive and productive” bilateral meetings.
Nov. 17, 2023: President Biden states in his remarks at the APEC Leaders Retreat Meeting in San Francisco how he and President Xi had a brief discussion during their in-person meeting a few days before about the “impact of artificial intelligence and how we have to work on it.”
Nov. 17, 2023: Department of Commerce’s BIS announces that it has removed the Ministry of Public Security’s Institute of Forensic Science of China from the Entity List.
Nov. 21, 2023: Broadcom and VMware announce that they intend to close the former’s acquisition of the latter after receiving all required regulatory approvals, including the final one outstanding from China’s anti-trust regulator, the State Administration for Market Regulation.
Nov. 25, 2023: US Navy destroyer USS Hopper conducts a freedom of navigation operation in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands.
Nov. 29, 2023: In a press briefing for the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP28), US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Kerry highlights the importance of the US-China partnership to fight the climate crisis and deliver progress at COP28.
Dec. 6, 2023: Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) meet virtually and release a Leaders’ Statement which says the G7 “stand prepared to build constructive and stable relations with China” but remain committed to “push for a level playing field” for workers and companies and remain “seriously concerned” about the situation in the East and South China Seas.
Dec. 6, 2023: US Navy P-8A Poseidon transits the Taiwan Strait in international airspace.
Dec. 8, 2023: Department of Homeland Security designates three additional PRC-based companies to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act Entity List.
Dec. 8, 2023: Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor releases a report to Congress on the Imposition of Sanctions Pursuant to the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, as is required by Section 6(a) of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020.
Dec. 10, 2023: Noting that Chinese ships “employed water cannons and reckless maneuvers” near Second Thomas Shoal, the Department of State releases a press statement to show “support for the Philippines in the South China Sea.”
Dec. 13, 2023: Financial Times releases an article reporting that Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China Chase “recently” met Maj. Gen. Liu Zhan, the PRC’s defense attaché in Washington, which took place prior to the Biden-Xi summit.
Dec. 14, 2023: Secretary of the Treasury Yellen delivers remarks on the US-China economic relationship at the US-China Business Council’s 50th Anniversary Dinner, and discusses the plans for the Biden administration’s economic approach to China.
Dec. 15, 2023: Department of Commerce’s BIS removes four Chinese companies from the Unverified List “because BIS was able to verify their bona fides.”
Dec. 15, 2023: US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns delivers public remarks on US-China relations at the Brookings Institution in which he mentions, among other topics, a mutual commitment to double scheduled passenger flights between the US and China in early 2024.
Dec. 17, 2023: US condemns the prosecution of “pro-democracy advocate and media owner Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong under the PRC-imposed National Security Law.”
Dec. 17, 2023: President Biden delivers a statement on the 80th Anniversary of the Repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act to remember the harms resulting from the act and honor the people of Chinese heritage and their contributions to the US.
Dec. 18, 2023: Head of US Indo-Pacific Command Adm. John Aquilino tells reporters in Tokyo that, “[s]ince the [Biden-Xi] summit, those [risky and coercive plane maneuvers] seem to have stopped,” also noting that “would be an incredibly positive outcome if that were to continue.”
Dec. 19, 2023: Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) adds 13 PRC companies to the Unverified List “on the basis that BIS was unable to verify their bona fides.”
Dec. 21, 2023: Gen. Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, holds a video meeting with Gen. Liu Zhenli, a member of the China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the CMC Joint Staff Department at the invitation, as part of the efforts to maintain open lines of military-to-military communications.
Dec. 21, 2023: Department of Commerce announces the launch of an industrial base survey of the US semiconductor supply chain to “bolster the semiconductor supply chain, promote a level playing field for legacy chip production, and reduce national security risks posed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” The announcement follows the release of an initial survey of the capabilities and challenges faced by the US semiconductor industry in which China is readily mentioned.
Dec. 22, 2023: Department of Commerce’s Assistant Secretary for Export Enforcement testifies that China has taken concrete steps to stem the flow of fentanyl precursor chemicals into the US during a House Foreign Affairs Oversight and Accountability Sub-committee hearing to review the Bureau of Industry and Security’s policies and practices.
Dec. 26, 2023: Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) extends COVID-related exclusions on the Section 301 tariffs on certain Chinese imports through May 31, 2024 to “enable the[ir] orderly review,” and effectively thereby pushing out further the date of conclusion of its ongoing four-year review of the Section 301 tariffs that began in May 2022.
Dec. 26, 2023: China’s foreign ministry spokesperson announces Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law-based countermeasures against a US intelligence data company Kharon and two researchers for providing “so-called evidence for America’s illegal sanctions related to Xinjiang,” during her regular press conference.
Dec. 29, 2023: China opens the door to a conversation among defense chiefs by appointing a non-US sanctioned former Navy commander, Adm. Dong Jun, as its new defense minister, two months after his predecessor Gen. Li Shangfu was officially sacked.
Jan. 2, 2023: Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang departs Washington after his tenure as Chinese ambassador to the US ends.
Jan. 5, 2023: US 7th Fleet Destroyer USS Chung-Hoon transits the Taiwan Strait.
Jan. 9, 2023: A proposed phone call between Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe is canceled after the Chinese decline to participate.
Jan. 10, 2023: US House of Representatives votes to establish a Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
Jan. 12, 2023: US Special Climate Envoy John Kerry meets virtually with Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua.
Jan. 16, 2023: China conducts live-fire exercises in the South China Sea as the US Navy’s Nimitz Carrier Strike Group also transits the waters.
Jan. 18, 2023: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has a “candid, substantive, and constructive conversation” with Vice-Premier Liu He on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Jan. 19, 2023: US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for China Michael Chase speaks to Song Yanchao, deputy director of China’s Office for International Military Cooperation, to express US “red-lines” on the Ukraine War ahead of a scheduled visit to China by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Jan. 22, 2023: Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Dr. Rahul Gupta, tells the Financial Times that his office is increasing pressure on Beijing to crack down on precursor chemicals used to create fentanyl while highlighting the potential for the drug crisis to spread to Europe and Asia.
Jan. 26, 2023: President Biden extends a program that allows for Hong Kong residents to remain in the US, citing the erosion of human rights and freedoms.
Jan. 27, 2023: United States Marine Corps opens a new base on Guam to counter China’s presence in the Western Pacific.
Jan. 27, 2023: US Trade Representative appeals two WTO dispute panel rulings brought by China on Section 232 tariffs and on “made in China” designations for Hong Kong to a defunct WTO Appellate Body.
Jan. 27, 2023: Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan warns in a leaked internal memo to US military leadership that the US and China “will fight in 2025” over Taiwan. The Pentagon immediately distances itself from the comments saying they are “not representative of the department’s view on China.”
Jan. 31, 2023: US Customs and Border Protection begins to issue detention notices against aluminum shipments originating in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region over concerns of forced labor.
Jan. 31, 2023: US stops approving export licenses bound for Huawei.
Jan. 31, 2023: Undersecretary for Defense Policy Colin Kahl dismisses Gen. Minihan’s leaked assessment for Taiwan saying “I don’t see anything that indicates that this thing is imminent in the next couple of years.”
Jan. 31–Feb. 4, 2023: A Chinese surveillance balloon floats across the continental United States after first being spotted over Alaska on Jan. 28.
Feb. 1, 2023: House Committee on Energy and Commerce holds a hearing entitled “Economic Danger Zone: How America Competes To Win The Future Versus China.”
Feb. 2, 2023: US reopens its embassy in the Solomon Islands with Secretary Blinken hailing it as an important signal of Washington’s commitment to democracy in the Pacific region.
Feb. 2, 2023: Defense Secretary Austin reaches agreement with Philippine President Bongbong Marcos to expand the rotational US military presence in the Philippines with reference to confronting China in the South China Sea.
Feb. 2, 2023: Pentagon publicly announces that a high-altitude surveillance balloon from the People’s Republic of China is present above Montana.
Feb. 2, 2023: At an event at Georgetown University, CIA Director William Burns warns not to underestimate China’s ambitions toward Taiwan and that the agency knows “as a matter of intelligence” that President Xi has instructed the military to be operationally ready to reclaim Taiwan by 2027.
Feb. 3, 2023: Department of State indefinitely postpones Secretary Blinken’s planned visit to China over the balloon incident.
Feb. 4, 2023: China acknowledges the “unintended entry of a Chinese unmanned airship into US airspace due to force majeure.”
Feb. 4, 2023: US shoots down the surveillance balloon over the coast of South Carolina.
Feb. 6, 2023: China protests the downing of the balloon with the US Embassy in Beijing.
Feb. 7, 2023: President Biden vows to respond to Chinese threats to US sovereignty in his State of the Union address.
Feb. 7, 2023: House Financial Services Committee holds a hearing entitled “Combatting the Economic Threat from China.”
Feb. 7, 2023: House Armed Services Committee holds a hearing entitled “The Pressing Threat of the Chinese Communist Party to US National Defense.”
Feb. 8, 2023: Pentagon describes the downed balloon as part of a wider, global Chinese surveillance operation.
Feb. 9, 2023: Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Defense Deptartment holds a hearing on “The People’s Republic of China’s High Altitude Surveillance Efforts Against the United States.”
Feb. 9, 2023: Beijing’s state-owned Xinhua news issues a report decrying the level of drug abuse in the US.
Feb. 10, 2023: Department of Commerce adds six Chinese companies to the Entity List over their involvement in Beijing’s balloon surveillance program.
Feb. 11, 2023: US Navy’s Nimitz Carrier Strike Group conducts combined exercises in the South China Sea with the Marine Corps” Makin Island Amphibious Ready Group.
Feb. 13, 2023: China alleges that the US sent 10 balloons into Chinese airspace in 2022.
Feb. 15, 2023: Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman says that all countries should warn China against invading Taiwan at an event at the Brookings Institution.
Feb. 15, 2023: US Defense official anonymously confirms that the planned trajectory of the downed Chinese surveillance balloon would likely have taken it over Guam and Hawaii rather than the continental United States.
Feb. 16, 2023: Beijing’s state-owned Xinhua news organ issues a report decrying gun violence in the US.
Feb. 17, 2023: China imposes sanctions on US defense manufacturers Raytheon and Lockheed Martin as a “countermeasure” for their fulfillment of arms sales contracts for Taiwan.
Feb. 18, 2023: Wang Yi, Politburo member and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, delivers keynote remarks titled “Making the World a Safer Place” at the 59th Munich Security Conference in Germany.
Feb. 18, 2023: In an effort to maintain lines of communication, Secretary Blinken meets Wang Yi on the sidelines of the 59th Munich Security Conference, the first high-level meeting between Chinese and US officials since the balloon incident. Maintaining a cold shoulder, the Chinese readout is explicit that the meeting comes at the request of the US side.
Feb. 19–22, 2023: Ranking members of the House Select Committee on China, Mike Gallagher and Ro Khanna, travel to Taiwan as part of two delegations and issue a statement against China’s “cognitive war” against Taiwan upon their return.
Feb. 20, 2023: Beijing’s state-owned Xinhua news organ issues a report decrying US “hegemony” across the world’s political, military, economic, technological and cultural spheres.
Feb. 22, 2023: China launches a new concept paper for the “Global Security Initiative” which appends 20 “priorities of cooperation” to its standard sovereignty-focused fare.
Feb. 22, 2023: A Chinese J-11 fighter jet shadows a US Navy reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea.
Feb. 23, 2023: Beijing’s state-owned Xinhua news organ issues a report decrying economic polarization in the US.
Feb. 24, 2023: Office of the US Trade Representative releases an annual report on China’s WTO Compliance.
Feb. 24, 2023: Beijing issues a 12-point “Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis” which US officials are quick to dismiss as “talking up Russia’s false narrative about the war.” Secretary Blinken tells ABC News that China’s peace plan is not serious as “if they were serious about the first [point], sovereignty, then this war could end tomorrow.”
Feb. 26, 2023: CIA Director William Burns, in a revision of comments from earlier in the month, assesses that China likely has doubts about its ability to invade Taiwan and that Xi’s 2027 target to be invasion-ready is not indicative of a solid decision.
Feb. 26, 2023: Updated Department of Energy report concludes, albeit with a low level of confidence, that the COVID-19 pandemic emerged as a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s research into the novel coronavirus.
Feb. 27, 2023: A US 7th Fleet P-8A Poseidon aircraft transits the Taiwan Strait.
Feb. 28, 2023: An inaugural hearing of the House Select Committee on China is held on “The Chinese Communist Party’s Threat to America.”
Feb. 28, 2023: House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology holds a hearing on “United States, China and the Fight for Global Leadership: Building a U.S National Science and Technology Strategy.”
Feb. 28, 2023: House Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on “Combatting the Generational Challenge of CCP Aggression.”
March 2, 2023: Department of Commerce adds 28 Chinese firms to the Entity List over alleged ties to the Iranian military.
March 6, 2023: President Xi, in rare form, takes direct aim at US “containment, encirclement and suppression” of China in a speech at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
March 7, 2023: White House endorses introduction of the RESTRICT Act in the Senate, which would empower the Commerce Dept. to ban technology services and service providers deemed to pose “undue or unacceptable risk” to US national security from the country.
March 8, 2023: US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines tells lawmakers at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee that the Chinese government is seeking to avoid further escalation of bilateral tensions and emphasized China’s desire for a more stable relationship.
March 8, 2023: House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet holds a hearing entitled “Intellectual Property and Strategic Competition with China: Part I.”
March 9, 2023: House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Intelligence holds a hearing on “Confronting Threats Posed by the Chinese Communist Party to the US Homeland.”
March 13, 2023: President Biden announces project milestones and timelines related to a landmark agreement to jointly develop and deploy nuclear submarines in the Asia-Pacific region with Australia and the United Kingdom.
March 20, 2023: Biden signs a law requiring his administration to declassify US intelligence on the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
March 20, 2023: China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues a report decrying the state of US democracy in 2022.
March 21, 2023: Department of Commerce issues a proposed rule to restrict foreign firms from using CHIPS and Science Act grants to expand semiconductor manufacturing capacity overseas.
March 23, 2023: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testifies before House Committee on Energy and Commerce and is questioned on the company’s firewall and data protection policies. Following the hearing, the Chinese Foreign Ministry clarifies in a press conference that China does not ask any company for access to foreign data.
March 23, 2023: House Select Committee on China holds a hearing entitled “The Chinese Communist Party’s Ongoing Uyghur Genocide.”
March 23, 2023: House Financial Services Subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions holds a hearing entitled “Follow the Money: CCP’s Business Model Fueling the Fentanyl Crisis.”
March 24, 2023: US 7th Fleet Destroyer USS Milius conducts a Freedom of Navigation Operation in the Paracel Islands.
March 28, 2023: China’s State Council Information Office issues a report decrying the level of human rights violations in the US in 2022.
March 29, 2023: Beijing’s state-owned Xinhua news issues a report decrying US arbitrary detention practices at home and abroad.
March 29–31, 2023: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen transits New York on her way to Central America where she receives a Global Leadership Award from the Hudson Institute.
March 31, 2023: Treasury Department releases proposed guidance on the electric vehicle consumer subsidy found in the Inflation Reduction Act which will effectively ban Chinese EVs and EV battery components from the US market.
April 3, 2023: Washington and Manila jointly announce the locations of four more military bases with US funding and troop access—three of which are located in the north of the country near Taiwan, and one in the southwest near the Spratly islands. China’s foreign ministry responds on the 6th, saying that the new locations are “uncalled-for.”
April 4-6, 2023: Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen stops in California, en-route from visits to Guatemala and Belize, where she meets House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and several other US lawmakers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. China responds on the 7th by sanctioning the US institutions and individuals who met Tsai, and sending aircraft and warships across the Taiwan Strait for a 3-day exercise “encircling” the island.
April 6-8, 2023: House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul visits Taiwan and meets Tsai and Vice President Lai Ching-te. On the 13th, China responds by sanctioning him personally, adding to the list of senior members of Congress on Beijing’s blacklist.
April 7, 2023: Leaked documents from the Pentagon come to light and expose US military intelligence’s apprehension about Taiwan’s ability to accurately detect and quickly counter potential Chinese air strikes. The leaks also reveal that, as of January, China ignored all requests from Russia’s Wagner Group to provide weapons for its military actions in Ukraine.
April 8, 2023: House of Representatives votes unanimously to instruct the White House to work toward changing China’s status as a “developing nation” in the World Trade Organization.
April 9, 2023: US 7th Fleet Destroyer USS Milius conducts a Freedom of Navigation Operation near the Beijing-controlled Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands.
April 11, 2023: Washington and Manila agree to move forward with drafting a “Security Sector Assistance Roadmap,” with a focus on resisting Chinese incursions in the South China Sea, at a 2+2 (defense and foreign) ministerial dialogue in Washington.
April 12, 2023: Government Accountability Office releases a report entitled “Federal Spending: Information on US Funding to Entities Located in China.”
April 14, 2023: Treasury Department sanctions two entities and four individuals from China over their involvement in supplying precursors for US-bound fentanyl.
April 15, 2023: China refuses to reschedule Secretary Blinken’s planned visit to Beijing over concerns that the FBI may release to the public the results of its analysis of the debris recovered from the Chinese surveillance balloon downed in early February.
April 16, 2023: US 7th Fleet Destroyer USS Milius transits the Taiwan Strait.
April 17, 2023: Foreign ministers of the G7 countries meet in Japan and vow, among other things, to address China’s increasing threats to Taiwan and ambiguity on the war in Ukraine.
April 18, 2023: Adm. John Aquilino, senior US military commander in the Indo-Pacific, dismisses colleagues’ speculations about a potential timetable for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
April 18, 2023: House Oversight and Accountability Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic holds a hearing entitled “Investigating the Origins of COVID-19, Part 2: China and the Available Intelligence.”
April 18, 2023: House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Indo-Pacific holds a hearing entitled “Surrounding the Ocean: PRC Influence in the Indian Ocean.”
April 18, 2023: House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa holds a hearing entitled “Great Power Competition in Africa: Chinese Communist Party.”
April 18, 2023: House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade holds a hearing entitled “Countering China’s Trade and Investment Agenda: Opportunities for American Leadership.”
April 19, 2023: House Committee on Ways and Means holds a hearing entitled “The US Tax Code Subsidizing Green Corporate Handouts and the Chinese Communist Party.”
April 20, 2023: Secretary Yellen gives a speech at Johns Hopkins University that presents a softer economic approach to China than seen in months previous. It seeks “a constructive and fair economic relationship with China” which aims to close gaps in US national security through “friendshoring…creating redundancies in our critical supply chains” without “a full separation of [the two] economies” or “stifl[ing] China’s economic and technological modernization.”
April 20, 2023: US Army Maj. Gen. in Japan Joel Vowell states that Tokyo has shifted its military focus to protecting the Ryukyu Island chain in its southwest against potential threats from China, and that the US is aiding in this pivot.
April 20, 2023: House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations holds a hearing entitled “China’s Political Prisoners: Where’s Gao Zhisheng?”
April 20, 2023: Department of Homeland Security announces commencement of a 90-day, AI-integrated review of Chinese influence in US supply chains and firms.
April 21, 2023: Pentagon releases Annual Freedom of Navigation Program Report for Fiscal Year 2022 which lists China as the country with the most transgressions of international laws which govern maritime claims and navigational rights.
April 22, 2023: House Select Committee on China holds tabletop exercise that simulates a Chinese attack against Taiwan to review US policy options in a worst-case scenario.
April 26, 2023: House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services holds a hearing entitled “China in Our Backyard: How Chinese Money Laundering Organizations Enrich the Cartels.”
April 26, 2023: President Xi speaks on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the first time, with the latter welcoming China’s substantive step in facilitating a political end to the conflict despite Washington’s apprehension.
April 26, 2023: Biden administration agrees to send a nuclear ballistic missile-armed submarine, and other “strategic assets,” to South Korea during a state visit by President Yoon Suk-yeol to Washington. Beijing angrily responds the next day calling it the product of Washington’s “selfish geopolitical interests” that undermines “regional peace and stability.”
April 27, 2023: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan delivers remarks to the Brookings Institution elaborating on Yellen’s speech on China-implicated economic policy the previous week. He clarifies that the administration’s “modern trade agreements” with “like-minded partners” will include more than just tariff reduction, adding supply chain resilience, green finance, and labor rights to the list of US economic interests.
April 27, 2023: House Armed Services Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations holds a hearing entitled “A Review of the Defense Intelligence Enterprise’s posture and capabilities in strategic competition and in synchronizing intelligence efforts to counter the People’s Republic of China.”
April 27, 2023: A US 7th Fleet P-8A Poseidon aircraft transits the Taiwan Strait.
May 1, 2023: Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Pacific Fleet, says that the US is prepared to assist the Philippines in its efforts to resupply its forces in the Second Thomas Shoal that China has “frequently interfered with.”
May 3, 2023: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III and Philippine Secretary of the Department of National Defense Carlito Galvez establish the Bilateral Defense Guidelines to modernize their alliance cooperation.
May 4, 2023: China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that the South China Sea should not become a “hunting ground for external forces” after the US and the Philippines affirm new guidelines to govern their mutual defense commitments.
May 5, 2023: US moves a $500 million proposed arms sale package bound for Taiwan to a fast track through the “Presidential Drawdown Authority” created for streamlining aid to Ukraine.
May 10, 2023: House Rules Committee holds a hearing on “Examining China’s Coercive Economic Tactics.”
May 10–11, 2023: National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan meets Chinese Communist Party Politburo Member and Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi over two days in Vienna.
May 12, 2023: US federal court in Boston charges a Chinese-American man with conspiracy over allegedly working with Chinese officials to spy on and suppress pro-democracy activism by Chinese nationals in the US.
May 12, 2023: Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman retires from the State Department and replaced by Victoria Nuland as her acting successor.
May 15, 2023: China sentences 78-year-old US citizen and Hong Kong national John Shing-Wan Leung to life in prison on espionage charges.
May 16, 2023: Included among the inaugural cases of an interagency “technology strike force” are charges against a former Apple engineer for allegedly trying to sell source code for advanced machinery with military implications to China, and against China-based agents attempting to send blacklisted weapons components to Iran.
May 16, 2023: Senate Appropriations Committee holds hearing on “A Review of the President’s Fiscal Year 24 Budget Request: Investing in US Security, Competitiveness, and the Path Ahead for the US-China Relationship” with Secretaries Austin, Blinken, and Raimondo testifying.
May 16, 2023: House Natural Resources Committee holds hearing on “Preserving US Interests in the Indo-Pacific: Examining How US Engagement Counters Chinese Influence in the Region.”
May 17, 2023: Montana becomes the first state to ban TikTok from operating inside its borders.
May 17, 2023: House Armed Services Committee holds a hearing “To receive special testimony on the role of Special Operations Forces in supporting the National Defense Strategy, including activities that contribute to long-term strategic competition with China and Russia.”
May 17, 2023: House Select Committee on China holds a hearing titled “Leveling the Playing Field: How to Counter the CCP’s Economic Aggression.”
May 18, 2023: China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes a 5,000-word report criticizing “America’s Coercive Diplomacy and Its Harm.”
May 18, 2023: US Trade Representative reaches initial agreement with Taiwan on the “21st-century” Trade Initiative.
May 18, 2023: House Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing titled “Standing United Against the People’s Republic of China’s Economic Aggression and Predatory Practices.”
May 20, 2023: Leaders of G7 countries issue a joint communiqué at the bloc’s annual summit’s climax saying that they aim to “de-risk and diversify” their economic relationship with China, rather than de-coupling, and to confront its actions which “distort the global economy.”
May 20, 2023: China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson describes G7 leaders’ communiqué as “hindering international peace, undermining regional stability and curbing other countries’ development.”
May 21, 2023: President Biden says that US-China relations will “thaw very shortly” during a press conference prior to departing the G7 Summit in Hiroshima.
May 21, 2023: China bans domestic companies that handle critical information from buying products made by US chipmaker Micron over “serious network security risks.”
May 22, 2023: The US and Papua New Guinea conclude a Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) and an Agreement Concerning Illicit Transnational Maritime Activity Operations. It later emerges that the DCA will enable the US military to station troops and vessels at six key ports and airports and allow “unimpeded access” to the sites to pre-position equipment and supplies and “exclusive use” of some zones for development and construction activities.
May 23, 2023: China’s new Ambassador to the US Xie Feng arrives in Washington.
May 23, 2023: House Homeland Security Committee holds a hearing titled “A Security Sprint: Assessing the US Homeland’s Vulnerabilities to Chinese Communist Party Aggression”
May 24, 2023: Microsoft and US intelligence accuse China of sponsoring hacker network Volt Typhoon upon discovering efforts to target military communications infrastructure in Guam.
May 25, 2023: Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo meets with Chinese counterpart Wang Wentao in Washington where the two had “candid and substantive discussions on issues relating to the US-China commercial relationship.”
May 26, 2023: US Trade Representative Katherine Tai meets China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao on sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Detroit.
May 30, 2023: US Indo-Pacific Command denounces a Chinese jet for performing an “unnecessarily aggressive” maneuver against one of its reconnaissance planes during a routine overflight in international airspace over South China Sea on May 26.
May 31, 2023: Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee holds a hearing “To examine countering China, focusing on advancing US national security, economic security, and foreign policy, including S.1271, to impose sanctions with respect to trafficking of illicit fentanyl and its precursors by transnational criminal organizations, including cartels.”
June 2, 2023: Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin shakes hands with Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu at 20th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, but they hold no “substantive dialogue”; Beijing rejected Washington’s request for a meeting on the conference’s sidelines.
June 2, 2023: Secretary of Defense loyd Austin calls out China’s “alarming number of risky intercepts of US and allied aircraft flying lawfully in international airspace” in his remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue.
June 2, 2023: CIA announces that Director William Burns made a secret trip to China in May in an attempt to keep lines of communication open despite security and economic tensions.
June 3, 2023: Destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal transit Taiwan Strait during which a Chinese guided-missile destroyer veered across the former’s bow in an “unsafe” maneuver.
June 4, 2023: Chinese DM Li Shangfu hails China’s regional ties and criticizes “countries outside the region” for asserting “hegemony of navigation in the name of freedom of navigation” in remarks at the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue.
June 5, 2023: The US and India release a Roadmap for US-India Defense Industrial Cooperation prior to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s four-day state visit to the US.
June 5, 2023: Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, meets China’s Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu in Beijing and the two hold “candid and productive” talks.
June 6, 2023: House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing titled “IP and Strategic Competition with China: Part II—Prioritizing US Innovation Over Assisting Foreign Adversaries.”
June 7, 2023: Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on “Aligning transatlantic approaches on China.”
June 8, 2023: Senate Foreign Relations Committee approves the “Ending China’s Developing Nation Status Act” calling on the secretary of State to work towards stripping China of its ‘developing’ country status in international organizations.
June 8, 2023: Xie Feng tells US-China Business Council that Beijing considers the Taiwan issue “the biggest risk” to US-China relations, but that China “has always been open to dialogue.”
June 9, 2023: White House denies reporting by the Wall Street Journal and Politico that suggests that China is in talks with Cuba to establish an eavesdropping facility that reaches the US.
June 9, 2023: Department of Homeland Security bans imports from two additional Chinese companies through the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) Entity List.
June 12, 2023: Commerce Department says that it will extend existing exemptions to US export controls against the Chinese advanced semiconductor sector to apply to manufacturers in South Korea and Taiwan and allow them to continue to do business in China.
June 13, 2023: House Financial Services Committee holds hearing on “The Annual Testimony of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the International Financial System,” at which Treasury Secretary Yellen says “it would be disastrous for us to attempt to decouple from China.”
June 13, 2023: China conducts naval exercises off the coast of Zhejiang in the East China Sea, coming at the same time as joint naval exercises between the US, Japan, Canada, and France are underway in the Philippine Sea, beginning on June 9.
June 14, 2023: House Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on “Assessing US Efforts to Counter China’s Coercive Belt and Road Diplomacy.”
June 14, 2023: Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing “To receive a closed briefing on the current dynamics in US-China relations.”
June 18-19, 2023: Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Beijing for two days where he holds 12 hours of meetings with top Chinese officials including President Xi—the first visit of its kind since 2018. Blinken also holds meetings with then-Foreign Minister Qing Gang and Central Foreign Affairs Commission director Wang Yi.
June 19, 2023: President Biden says that he believes US-China relations are “on the right trail” and hails “progress” after Secretary Blinken’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
June 20, 2023: President Biden labels China’s President Xi a “dictator,” in remarks during a campaign fundraiser, prompting denunciations from China.
June 22, 2023: US and India announce agreement during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to jointly produce General Electric F414 engines in India for New Delhi’s future combat aircraft.
June 23, 2023: Justice Department indicts four Chinese companies and eight nationals over trafficking chemical precursors used in fentanyl production to the US.
June 23, 2023: Director of National Intelligence declassifies a report investigating potential links between Wuhan Institute of Virology and the COVID-19 pandemic, revealing a lack of consensus between different intelligence agencies.
June 23, 2023: China issues an official reprimand to the US ambassador in Beijing over President Biden’s “dictator” comment.
June 28, 2023: China’s embassy in the US says that Washington must remove Chinese officials from the sanctioned specially designated nationals list if it wants to restart military-to-military dialogue.
June 28, 2023: A Chinese law is adopted that allows China to take restrictive measures “against acts that endanger [China’s] sovereignty, national security and development interests in violation of international law or fundamental norms governing international relations.”
June 29, 2023: State Department approves sale of $332.2 million worth of 30mm ammunition to Taiwan.
June 30, 2023: President Biden receives China’s ambassador to the US, Xie Feng, at the White House.
June 30, 2023: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, says that there is still time to dissuade and deter China from mounting an invasion of Taiwan.
Notice: This chronology will next be updated in September 2024.
