Global Courant
BEIJING (Reuters) – A widely followed state-backed Chinese social media account accused Washington of repeatedly playing tricks and creating the “illusion” that it is eager to engage with China days ahead of an expected visit from the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
While not yet announced by the State Department, a US official has said Blinken will be in China for talks on June 18.
The run-up to the high-level visit, and the stakes are high, has been marred by fresh US claims of Chinese espionage and scathing Chinese attacks on Washington’s sincerity to improve badly frayed bilateral ties.
Blinken canceled a visit to Beijing in February after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States. Days prior to his trip this week, US officials, including Blinken himself, said China had been spying from Cuba for some time and had improved its intelligence-gathering facilities there in 2019, claims that Beijing and Havana dismissed as false.
On Monday, Blinken said China’s efforts in Cuba were part of a global effort by Beijing to expand its presence abroad, and US actions to address this since President Joe Biden came to power in January 2021 have ” results”, without specifying what those results were.
“Every time they say they want to meet, the United States would play a role and create the false illusion that they are eager to communicate, while at the same time repeatedly testing and provoking China’s fundamental principles,” said Yuyuan Tantian, a user of social media. with China’s state broadcaster CCTV, wrote in an online article on Tuesday.
The balloon incident at the beginning of the year was a “farce,” and a request by the US defense secretary to meet with his Chinese counterpart earlier this month, which was turned down, was nothing for a “carefully crafted” performance, it said.
To underline the negative mood surrounding Blinken’s visit, a man sprayed anti-American graffiti on the wall and a gate of the US consulate in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
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Local TV images showed the word “hegemony” in English and the words “double standards” in simplified Chinese characters, used in mainland China in contrast to the traditional script common in the Chinese-ruled city.
“As the US has repeatedly emphasized the need to strengthen high-level communications with China, whether Blinken will visit China is a litmus test of the US’s sincerity and political maneuvering ability,” China’s state-run Global Times wrote on Sunday. an editorial comment.
(Reporting by Ryan Woo; editing by Lincoln Feast.)
