The United States wants to de-risk and diversify its relationship with China, not decouple, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Thursday, in the Biden administration’s latest effort to define its economic approach toward China and reassure European allies that have grown wary of the increasingly hawkish U.S. position.
Since taking office more than two years ago, the Biden administration has unleashed a spate of moves targeting China’s technology sector, including by ramping up semiconductor export controls and effectively blacklisting dozens of Chinese companies by adding them to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List, which requires these firms to secure a special license to purchase U.S. technologies. Concerned about supply chain vulnerabilities, Washington has also intensified efforts to carve out new critical mineral supplies that fall outside Beijing’s orbit.
