Global Courant
HONG KONG — Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday, the second and final day of a high-stakes visit to ease rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Blinken’s trip to China is the first by a US Secretary of State since 2018. He is also the highest-ranking US official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office.
His talks with Xi – seen as key to the trip’s success – were expected, but were not confirmed by either side until shortly before they were due to begin.
Blinken’s meetings with senior Chinese officials were expected to address a number of points of contention, including trade, Taiwan, human rights, Chinese military aggression in the South China Sea and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Earlier Monday, Blinken met with Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, who the foreign ministry called “candid and prolific.”
Blinken “underscored the importance of responsibly managing competition between the United States and (China) through open communication channels to ensure that competition does not turn into conflict,” said Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the State Department.
The secretary also reiterated that the United States will continue to use diplomacy to raise concerns and champion the interests and values of the American people.
Blinken will be greeted on Monday at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.Leah Millis/AFP – Getty Images
Wang blamed the United States’ “misperception” of China for the poor relations between the two countries, saying Washington had to make a choice “between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict,” according to a reading by China’s foreign ministry. “.
He said it was important to reverse the “downward spiral” in the relationship, return it to a healthy and stable path and “jointly find the right path for China and the US to interact in the new era”.
Wang asked the US to lift sanctions against Chinese entities and to stop suppressing China’s technological development, a reference to US export controls on semiconductor technology. He also highlighted China’s position on Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims as its territory and whose status is one of the biggest focal points in US-China relations.
China has accused the US, Taiwan’s main international lender, of promoting Taiwan’s independence through official exchanges between the island’s president and senior US officials, such as former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and her successor , Kevin McCarthy.
“On this point, China has no room for compromise or concession,” the readout read.
Blinken and Wang made no comments to reporters ahead of their meeting, which lasted three hours.
State Department officials had said the two countries were unlikely to make a breakthrough on Blinken’s trip, which was originally scheduled for February but was postponed after the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over US soil. While China stressed the importance of resuming high-level communications, it was also less enthusiastic about Blinken’s visit this week than before the earlier trip was postponed.
But it could lay the groundwork for a meeting later this year between Biden and Xi, who last met last November in Indonesia on the sidelines of a Group of 20 major economies summit.
Biden told reporters on Saturday that he hopes to meet with Xi in the coming months to talk about “legitimate differences we have, but also how we get along.”
After arriving on Sunday, Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang for talks that both sides described as “candid” and “constructive”. Those talks lasted nearly six hours, followed by a two-hour working dinner, senior State Department officials said.
US and Chinese delegations at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Monday.Lea Millis/AP
Blinken “emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open communication channels across the range of issues to reduce the risk of misconceptions and miscalculations,” Miller, the State Department spokesman, said in a statement.
Blinken also made it “clear that the United States will always stand up for the interests and values of the American people and will work with its allies and partners to advance our vision for a world that is free and open and the international rules-based order maintains. Miller said.
Qin noted that ties between the US and China have reached their lowest point since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1979.
“This does not serve the fundamental interests of the two peoples or meet the shared expectations of the international community,” China’s foreign ministry said in a reading of the meeting.
Like Wang, Qin brought up the Taiwan issue as “the core of China’s core interests”.
“China hopes that the US will adopt an objective and rational perception of China, work with China in the same direction, maintain the political basis of China-US relations, and deal with unexpected and sporadic events in a calm, professional and rational manner.” will handle.” according to the lecture of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The two countries said Qin, who was previously China’s ambassador to the United States, had accepted an invitation from Blinken to visit the US at a mutually convenient time.
Evelyn Cheng, CNBC, Murphy Zhao and Abigail Williams contributed.
