Biden administration to formally launch "China House" amid global rivalry

The Biden administration on Friday will announce the formal launch of its "China House" unit at the State Department, a senior State Department official told Reuters, an internal reorganization move to help sharpen its policymaking on its most consequential global rival, Beijing.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in May announced the creation of China House, calling it a department-wide integrated team that would coordinate and implement U.S. policy across issues and regions.

"The scale and the scope of the challenge posed by the People's Republic of China will test American diplomacy like nothing we've seen before," Blinken said in May.

The top U.S. diplomat said China posed "the most serious long-term challenge to the international order" and laid out the contours of a strategy to invest in U.S. competitiveness and align with allies and partners to compete with China, calling that competition "ours to lose."

The news that the announcement was due later on Friday was first reported by Politico.

Formally known as the Office of China Coordination, China House will replace the China Desk in the State Department's East Asian and Pacific Affairs bureau and will employ roughly 60 to 70 personnel, including liaisons from other parts of the State Department as well as people from other departments who focus on relevant topics such as technology and economic policy, the Politico report said.

Following an August visit to Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China launched military drills around the island, which it considers Chinese territory, and cut off communications with the United States in a number of areas, including military issues and climate change.

Since then, China and the United States have worked to steady the relationship. U.S. President Joe Biden and China's President Xi Jinping met in-person on the Indonesian island of Bali earlier in November and the countries have agreed to follow-up discussions, including a planned visit to China by Blinken in early 2023.

"China House will deepen our capacity to share information, sharpen our messaging, and adjust to breaking developments in real-time," Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is due to tell State Department staffers on Friday, the Politico report said citing a draft.

The global rivalry between the two countries grew when the Biden administration on Thursday broadened its crackdown on China's chip industry.