On November 8, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN how the Biden administration handles United States’ relations with China. Sullivan said that one of the shortcomings of U.S.’ prior approaches with policy towards China was the thought which expects the Chinese system would fundamentally change through U.S. policy, and this is not the goal of the Biden administration.

He went on to explain that, "the goal of America's China policy is to create a circumstance in which two major powers are going to have to operate in an international system for the foreseeable future". He added that, the object of the Biden administration is to shape the international environment so that it is more favorable to the interests and values of the United States and its allies and partner.

This important statement has aroused widespread concern, where different countries and different media interpret it differently.

The Chinese state media quickly reported this public statement collectively. The Global Times believes that this indicates the United States has no alternative but to accept it cannot change China. The implication is that the U.S. has admitted its failure.

Some media in Taiwan show unique position, as Taiwan believes that this is a certain degree of concession by the United States.

There are also those who see Sullivan’s statement not as halting its competition with China, nor giving up its dominant position to seek coexistence with China. The “shortcoming” mentioned by Sullivan was in fact consistent with the theme of Mike Pompeo’s iconic “new Cold War” speech at the Nixon Library. This means that both parties in the United States have publicly acknowledged that the past policy of engagement with China was a strategically failure.

It is interesting and noteworthy that although Sullivan expressed the coexistence of the U.S. with China, he also made it clear that he hopes this will be conducive to the advancement of the interests and values of the United States and its allies and partners, to like-minded democracies, and he still emphasized the need to maintain an open, fair, and free Indo-Pacific region. Therefore, Sullivan seems to be stating that the United States must still be committed to maintaining its status and values and will not allow China to subvert the international order it established in the Asia-Pacific region.

More importantly, Sullivan talked about the need for the leadership style of the United States in today's global landscape to change. One of the major elements is to establish closer relationships with its allies and partners. He said that the United States is now stepping up work to establish an economic framework, a set of methods around 21st century economic issues, including areas from supply chain to investment screening and digitalization.

There are also those who see that the United States attempts to gradually exclude China from the political, economic, and ideological system that it advocates. The coexistence of the United States and China is not about reverting to cooperation like in the past, but is rather similar to the coexistence of the United States and Russia, or even worse. From this perspective, the model envisaged by the Biden administration might even be a strategy to promote the CCP’s internal disintegration like the slow suffocation of the Soviet Union before this.