Blinken in Beijing talks to ease soaring tensions

BEIJING — US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a second and final day of critical meetings with senior Chinese officials Monday, June 19, 2023, as the two sides expressed willingness to talk but showed little inclination to bend on hardened positions that have sent tensions soaring.

Blinken met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for about three hours, according to a US official, but it is still not confirmed if Blinken will meet President Xi Jinping before he departs in the late evening.

Neither Blinken nor Wang made any comment to reporters as they greeted each other and sat for their discussion.

In the first round of talks on Sunday, June 18, Blinken met for nearly six hours with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang after which both countries said they had agreed to continue high-level discussions. However, there was no sign that any of the most fractious issues between them were closer to resolution.

Despite Blinken’s presence in China, he and other US officials had played down the prospects for any significant breakthroughs on the most vexing issues facing the planet’s two largest economies.

Instead, Blinken and other officials have emphasized the importance of the US and China establishing and maintaining better lines of communication.

The two sides both said Qin had accepted an invitation from Blinken to visit Washington, but Beijing made clear that “the China-US relationship is at the lowest point since its establishment.” That sentiment is widely shared by US officials.

Open channels

The State Department said Blinken had stressed “the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation.”

The Chinese, meanwhile, restated their position that the current state of relations “does not serve the fundamental interests of the two peoples or meet the shared expectations of the international community,” according to the foreign ministry.

Blinken is the highest-level American official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office and his two-day trip comes after his initial plans to travel to China were postponed in February after the shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon over the US.

Biden and Xi had made commitments to improve communications “precisely so that we can make sure we are communicating as clearly as possible to avoid possible misunderstandings and miscommunications,” Blinken said before leaving for Beijing.

His talks could pave the way for a meeting in the coming months between Biden and Xi. Biden said Saturday, June 17, that he hoped to be able to meet with Xi in the coming months to take up the plethora of differences that divide them. (AP)