Beijing
CNN
—
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began talks with senior Chinese officials in Beijing on Sunday at the start of a high-stakes visit aimed at mending relations after months of simmering tensions between the two economies largest in the world.
Blinken is the first secretary of state to travel to China in five years and the highest-ranking US official to do so since President Joe Biden took office in early 2021.
Observers will be watching to see if a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping is planned. Previous trips by America’s top diplomat have often involved face-to-face meetings with China’s top leader, but relations are at their lowest level in decades.
Officials from both governments have indicated low expectations for the visit, with a senior State Department official telling reporters earlier this week that he did not expect “a long list of outcomes.”
Instead, US officials are framing the trip as an effort to resume normal channels of communication with China to avoid conflict between two of the world’s great powers.
“What we’re working on on this trip is to carry forward what President Biden and President Xi agreed to in Bali late last year, which was to establish regular and sustained lines of communication at high levels of our governments precisely because let’s make sure we’re communicating as clearly as possible to avoid, as best as possible, misunderstandings and misunderstandings,” Blinken said Friday before his departure.
Blinken’s main goal in China is to re-establish communication channels, particularly direct military-to-military communication between Washington and Beijing, according to a senior State Department official.
His entourage landed in Beijing on Sunday with a full schedule for the first day that began with a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who took office six months ago after completing a as Beijing’s ambassador to Washington.
Blinken and Qin shook hands in front of reporters at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on Sunday afternoon, their first in-person meeting in their current positions.
The two officials exchanged terse compliments in English about the US delegation’s flight before heading into a brightly lit meeting room with large windows overlooking a lotus pond and a large traditional Chinese ink painting on the wall
During the meeting, which lasted more than five hours, Blinken invited Qin to visit Washington and the invitation was accepted, State Department spokesman Matt Miller said in a readout of the meeting.
“The secretary invited Foreign Minister Qin to Washington to continue discussions, and they agreed to schedule a reciprocal visit at an appropriate time,” Miller said, adding that Blinken had emphasized the “importance of diplomacy and the maintenance of communication channels in the whole range”. of problems to reduce the risk of misperception or miscalculation.”
Blinken also expressed U.S. concerns on several fronts and opportunities to work together with China where interests align, Miller said.
US officials who participated in the meeting included Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
On the Chinese side, Qin was accompanied by other foreign ministry officials, including Deputy Foreign Minister Hua Chunying.
Overall, Sunday’s meeting was “straightforward” and resulted in progress “on several fronts,” with both sides showing a “desire to reduce tensions,” a senior State Department official told reporters . But the “profound differences” between the US and China were also clear during the meeting, the official added.
“No one had any preconceived notion that we would solve all the tough issues in one or two meetings,” the official added, noting that it was important to start the conversation.
One thing the two sides agreed on was the need to expand flights between the two countries, US officials said. But they did not share any agreement on this issue, or any other substantive issue, with reporters.
After the afternoon meeting, Blinken proceeded to a working dinner with Qin, the US State Department told the press.
On Monday, Blinken is scheduled to meet with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, as well as a panel discussion with exchange students and American business leaders.
The Biden administration’s relationship with Beijing is one of the most complicated and consequential, and one that has seen months of strain, including two military-related incidents in recent weeks.
Biden and Xi met in person for the first time as presidents on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit in Indonesia last November.
Blinken’s trip, which had been announced by Biden and Xi after their meeting, was initially scheduled for February and had been seen as a key engagement. However, it was postponed following the discovery of a suspected Chinese spy balloon transiting the United States, which Blinken said at the time “created conditions that undermined the purpose of the trip.”
However, Kritenbrink said Wednesday that both the United States and China came to “the shared conclusion that now is the right time to engage at this level,” but “we are not going to Beijing with the intention of having some kind of “advancement or transformation. in the way we treat each other.”
“I think the fact that China has agreed to this meeting reflects that Beijing feels quite confident about its own position,” Patricia Kim, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, told a media briefing on Friday.
“Both sides make comments about the fact that this trip, this visit will not fundamentally change the US-China relationship or resolve the many disputes between the two countries, and I think there is this desire not to set expectations too high or to seem too impatient to engage with the other side. I don’t think either side wants to appear to accept or condone the actions of the other,” he said.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Biden acknowledged “legitimate differences” with China but maintained he was willing to discuss “areas where we can get along.”
Ahead of his visit, Blinken said that in his meetings with senior Chinese officials, he intended to raise “our very real concerns on a number of issues.” These issues include the fentanyl crisis, Taiwan and cross-strait issues, the war in Ukraine and the detention of US citizens in China, including Kai Li, Mark Swidan and David Lin.
On the fentanyl crisis, the senior State Department official said Blinken’s specific focus is to stem the flow of precursor chemicals from China to laboratories in South America, where the deadly opioid is produced .
Blinken also said Friday that he intended to “explore the potential for cooperation on transnational challenges: global economic stability, illicit synthetic drugs, climate, global health, where the interests of our countries intersect and the rest of the world expect us to cooperate.”
His visit comes after a series of meetings between US and Chinese officials in recent weeks.
In May, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in Vienna, followed by talks between the two countries’ trade officials in Washington. China’s new ambassador has also arrived in the US, promising to improve relations at a time of “serious difficulties and challenges”.
“China and the United States have already had relatively frequent high-level diplomatic contacts, indicating that the two sides are gradually getting back on track,” said Shen Dingli, a China foreign policy expert in Shanghai.
However, contacts between the countries’ top military officials are still frozen, and it remains to be seen whether Blinken’s visit can be a breakthrough on that front. China rejected an offer for a formal meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who is under US sanctions, in Singapore last month, although both speak briefly
The United States will also host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit in November, which Xi, the Chinese leader, will attend regardless of the state of the U.S.-China relationship, Shen said.
But whether Xi’s trip will include a formal visit to the United States, and at what level, depends on “what both sides can do in advance,” Shen said.
Biden told reporters Saturday that he believed Blinken’s trip to China could ease tensions and said he hoped to meet with Xi again in the “next few months.”
Shen said there were two things that mattered most to China: “managing differences on the Taiwan issue and preventing supply chains from deviating, especially in advanced chips.”
“The hope is that Blinken’s visit can improve relations both in form and substance. But the hope might not turn into reality and relations might worsen after the visit,” he added. “We prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
Blinken would not predict whether his visit would pave the way for continued high-level engagements between the US and China.
“As for what comes next, we’ll see how the visit goes,” the top US diplomat said on Friday, referring to his Singaporean counterpart’s comments. “This is an important step but, in a sense, insufficient because there is a lot of work to be done.”
This story and headline have been updated with additional information.
