Chronologies
US - China
Chronology from Jan 2024 to May 2024
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: US Ambassador to the China Burns meets Special Envoy Zhai Jun of the Chinese Government on the Middle East Issue in Beijing.
: 400;">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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: A US Navy P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft transits the Taiwan Strait in “international airspace.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: Secretary of the Treasury Yellen meets with Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Beijing, China to deepen bilateral discussions.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: White House releases a Fact Sheet on taking action to “Address Risks of Autos from China and Other Countries of Concern.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: USS John Finn (DDG 113) conducts a bilateral exercise with allied maritime forces from Japan in the South China Sea.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: US National Security Agency and partners issue a Cybersecurity Advisory titled “PRC State-Sponsored Actors Compromise and Maintain Persistent Access to US Critical Infrastructure.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">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.”
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 400;">: US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo holds a phone call with PRC Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao.
: 400;">: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”
: 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.
: 400;">: 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.”