The United States and China “made progress” on several issues, President Xi Jinping said Monday, as he hosted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks in Beijing.
Blinken’s visit is the highest-level trip by a US official to China in nearly five years with ties severely strained between the world’s two largest economies.
President Xi met Blinken at the capital’s Great Hall of the People just after 4:30 pm (0830 GMT), Chinese state media and US officials said.
“The Chinese side has made our position clear and the two sides have agreed to follow through the common understandings President Biden and I had reached in Bali,” Xi told the top US diplomat.
“Two sides have also made progress and reached agreement on some specific issues”, he added. “I hope that Secretary Blinken, through this visit, can make positive contributions to stabilising China-US relations,” he added.
The meeting, which lasted just over half an hour, came after Blinken held more than 10 hours of talks over two days with other top officials.
At the ornate Diaoyutai State Guesthouse earlier Monday, Blinken and China’s foreign policy supremo Wang Yi offered polite smiles before talks with their aides.
Away from the cameras, Wang told Blinken that his trip “comes at a critical juncture in China-US relations”, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
“It is necessary to make a choice between dialogue and confrontation, cooperation or conflict,” he said.
“We must reverse the downward spiral of China-US relations, push for a return to a healthy and stable track, and work together to find a correct way for China and the United States to get along,” Wang added. He also issued a warning on Taiwan.
“On this issue, China has no room to compromise or concede,” Wang told Blinken, according to CCTV.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called the discussion with Wang “candid and productive”.
Blinken “underscored the importance of responsibly managing the competition between the United States and the PRC through open channels of communication to ensure competition does not veer into conflict”, Miller said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.
