Secretary of State Antony Blinken Meets Top China Diplomat as Trip Sees Positive Start

Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, a signal that a highly anticipated two-day mission to China is stabilizing strained ties between the world’s largest economies.

The Chinese leader will sit down with the top US diplomat at 4:30 p.m. on Monday in Beijing, the US State Department said in a statement. Blinken’s ability to sit down with Xi was seen as a key measure of success for his trip, and raises expectations the relationship could improve from its lowest point in decades.

Earlier in the day, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi told Blinken during a three-hour meeting that his visit had come at a “critical” juncture in US-China ties, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.
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“It’s necessary to make a choice between dialog and confrontation, cooperation and conflict,” Wang said, according to the statement. US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called the meeting “productive” in a statement. Blinken met with Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday, in talks both sides described as “candid” and lasted 7 1/2 hours — much longer than planned, officials said.

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The encouraging tone emerging from Blinken’s rare visit to China has raised expectations that the US official will sit down with President Xi Jinping later Monday. That exchange has been held up as a benchmark of success for the US trip, especially after the Chinese leader met American billionaire Bill Gates in Beijing last week.

Henry Wang Huiyao, founder of the Center for China and Globalization, said Blinken’s visit would be a catalyst for more bilateral interactions between the two nations. US President Joe Biden said Saturday he’s “hoping that over the next several months I’ll be meeting Xi again.”

“Blinken sets the stage for future interactions between different levels of government, the business community and academia and research,” Wang added. “He’s brought a period of stabilization, of easing tensions for at least the second half of the year.”

Fragile Ties

The most senior US official to visit China in five years, Blinken is making his trip at a tumultuous time, with the two sides sparring over everything from human rights and technology to trade and weapons sales to Taiwan.

Qin said on Sunday that Taiwan is “the core of the core interests” of China and “the most prominent risk” in China-US ties. Wang added that there could be “no compromise” over the island, which Beijing considers a breakaway territory it must reclaim by force if necessary.

Blinken’s previous attempt to visit China in February was scrapped when the US revealed an alleged Chinese spy balloon was floating over American territory — an incident that led China to accuse the US of “hysteria.”

Chinese state media didn’t feature Blinken’s rescheduled visit prominently on Monday, with Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily giving his meeting with Qin a corner slot on page three. The state-run Global Times’ English language edition gave more prominence to Premier Li Qiang’s concurrent trip to Europe, to shore up ties with Germany and France.

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Popular posts on China’s Twitter-like Weibo also questioned whether foreign media had used close-up shots of Blinken descending from his plane to avoid showing a muted reception on the tarmac, and criticized Western journalists for tweeting about Beijing’s smog when photos in Chinese state media of the US officials arriving showed clear blue skies.

Blinken’s talks with the Chinese foreign minister weren’t enough to lift the mood in early trading Monday, after limited details of potential future stimulus plans were released in the wake of Friday’s State Council meeting, disappointing markets.

Stock gauges fell in mainland China and Hong Kong, with the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dropping 1.4% — set for its biggest daily decline this month — after it posted its best week since January on policy and stimulus optimism.

Tangible Outcomes

Blinken’s trip has already produced signs of progress on tangible matters. Both sides on Sunday said they’d discussed increasing flights between the two countries, many of which were scrapped during the coronavirus pandemic. The two sides also agreed to encourage educational exchanges, according to the Chinese statement, a sign more student visas could be forthcoming.

The US side hopes to have more details to announce when Blinken speaks at a news conference ahead of his departure from China on Monday evening, a State Department official said.

While there was no expectation for the US and China to reconcile any of their fundamental differences the dialog on Sunday had improved the two sides’ understanding of each other and pushed talks toward a better outcome, the person added.

Blinken’s visit is part of a renewed flurry of high-level US-China engagement that has gradually picked up momentum after the balloon incident derailed an attempt by Biden and Xi — who met late last year in Bali, Indonesia — to establish a steadier path for bilateral relations.

Improved communication lines are, in part, intended to decrease the chance of a military accident, most likely in the South China Sea, spiraling into a conflict. The US and Chinese militaries recently had two dangerous confrontations between naval vessels and jets in the region, which the Pentagon characterized as “dangerous.”

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu — who is sanctioned by the US government — also recently rejected a meeting with his US counterpart Lloyd Austin when the two men attended a defense forum in Singapore this month.

—With assistance from Zhu Lin, Lucille Liu, Jing Li and Ishika Mookerjee.