Global Courant
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, on Monday on the second day of high-level diplomatic talks in Beijing between the two governments to try to rebuild the communication channels that had been broken during exploded explosively. collision over a Chinese spy balloon early this year.
Talks on a rainy morning at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse were a prelude to a likely meeting between Mr Blinken and China’s leader Xi Jinping in the afternoon. The two governments have not formally announced that meeting, but US and Chinese officials have spoken optimistically about planning for it in recent days. They have said that the two days of diplomacy in Beijing would ideally lead to a series of visits to the Chinese capital by other US officials at the cabinet level.
Efforts to establish regular diplomacy at the highest level come at a pivotal point in the fraught relationship between the two nations. Bilateral relations between the United States and China are at their lowest point in decades. Tensions ran high in February when the Pentagon announced that a Chinese surveillance balloon was drifting over the mainland United States and then ordered US fighter jets to shoot it down.
Mr Blinken canceled a planned visit to Beijing hours before he left as US lawmakers expressed anger at the balloon. That infuriated Chinese officials, who said the entire episode ruined progress made four months earlier in Bali, Indonesia, when President Biden and Mr Xi agreed to try to stabilize ties. Chinese officials continued to say the balloon had been launched for weather research and had drifted off course.
Relations became further tense in February when Mr Blinken confronted Mr Wang on the sidelines of the Munich security conference to tell him that Washington believed China was considering providing deadly support to Russia for its war in Ukraine. China responded by freezing a number of key diplomatic exchanges and intensifying anti-US rhetoric.
The two men seemed cordial on Monday as they walked together down a red-carpet hallway into a conference room. Similar to Mr Blinken’s long meeting in the same state building with Qin Gang, China’s foreign minister, on Sunday, delegations from the two governments sat facing each other at long tables.
Mr Blinken and Mr Qin had made progress in rebuilding mainstream diplomacy on Sunday night, even as they spoke candidly at the seven-and-a-half-hour meeting on the conflict areas in the relationship, according to readouts from each government and a briefing by State Department officials to reporters traveling with Mr. Blinken.
The US officials said the two governments had agreed to allow working groups and diplomats to meet soon on a range of issues, including people-to-people exchanges and visas for journalists. The US officials also said they and Chinese counterparts had agreed to expand direct flights between the two countries.
The two days of meetings could halt the downward spiral of ties. Analysts say it will take a lot more for the two sides to overcome the distrust weighing on the relationship, but it’s a good start to re-establishing a foundation of high-level diplomacy.
“Diplomacy is not a gift, but an indispensable tool for understanding the other side and dealing with difficult issues,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a Cornell University professor who studied Chinese politics and spent a year as a consultant at the State Department. China Policy Affairs. “Restoring communication channels is the bare minimum necessary to mitigate the growing risk of miscalculations and crises.”
China has rejected attempts by the Biden administration to establish so-called guardrails to prevent potential accidents from spiraling out of control in disputed areas such as the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Analysts say Beijing sees its unpredictability and growing risk appetite as a useful deterrent in convincing the United States to think twice about patrolling the waters and skies around China.
China has repeatedly blamed the United States for the deterioration of bilateral relations. There is no problem that bothers Beijing more than Washington’s supposed growing support for Taiwan, the de facto independent island claimed by China. Beijing has also sought to counter Washington’s attempts to restrict access to advanced semiconductor chips and manufacturing equipment and deepen defense ties with regional partners such as Japan, Australia and the Philippines.
Analysts said China may be driven to meet Mr Blinken for a number of reasons. Pressure on Beijing may increase to stabilize ties due to China’s deteriorating economy. Other countries have also begged China and the United States to break the cycle of hostility. Mr. Xi may also have wanted to stabilize the relationship so that he would be received as a world statesman if he chooses to attend a leadership summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Group in San Francisco in November.
“In recent months, China has been blaming the United States for everything that is wrong in the relationship and within China more broadly. Now China’s leaders must free up political space for more direct communication,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as director for China at the National Security Council under President Obama.
“Beijing sees it as in its interest to communicate directly to manage tensions in the relationship and build a stepping stone for President Xi to meet President Biden in the fall,” Mr. Hass added.
