US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began meetings in Beijing on Sunday — the first top American diplomat to visit China in five years — amid frosty bilateral ties and dim prospects for any breakthrough on the long list of disputes between the world’s two largest economies.
Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang greeted Blinken and his group at the door to a villa on the grounds of Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guest House, rather than inside the building as is customary.
The two made small talk as they walked in — Qin asking Blinken in English about his long trip from Washington. They then shook hands in front of a Chinese and an American flag.
After heading into a meeting room, neither Blinken nor Qin made comments in front of reporters who were briefly allowed in.
Chinese assistant foreign minister Hua Chunying, who is attending the meeting, tweeted a picture of Qin and Blinken shaking hands: “Hope this meeting can help steer China-US relations back to what the two Presidents agreed upon in Bali”.
During his stay through Monday, Blinken is also expected to meet with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and possibly President Xi Jinping.
It could also set the stage for meetings between Xi and Biden at multilateral summits later in the year.
Speaking with reporters on Sunday about the balloon incident in February, Biden said he did not think the Chinese leadership knew much about where the balloon was or what it did while adding that he hoped to meet Xi soon. “I’m hoping that, over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along,” Biden said.
Biden and Xi held their long-awaited first face-to-face talks on the sidelines of a summit of the Group of 20 big economies in November on the Indonesian island of Bali, engaging in blunt talks over Taiwan and North Korea but also pledging more frequent communication.
While that meeting briefly eased the fear of a new Cold War, the flight of the Chinese balloon over the United States a few months later escalated tension, and high-level communication since then has been rare.
Ties between the countries have deteriorated across the board, raising concern that they might one day clash militarily over the self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
They are also at odds over issues as varied as trade, US efforts to hold back China’s semiconductor industry and Beijing’s human rights record.
Blinken’s visit will also be closely followed by the rest of the world as any escalation between superpowers could have worldwide repercussions on anything from financial markets to trade routes and practices and global supply chains.—Agencies
