Blinken holds talks with Chinese FM, set to visit Beijing

Following up on the agreement between US President Joe Biden and China’s president Xi Jinping in Bali to maintain open lines of communication, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing, the State Department announced on Wednesday.

In a statement, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken will travel to Beijing and then London between June 16 and 21.

“While in Beijing, Secretary Blinken will meet with senior Chinese officials where he will discuss the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the US-China relationship. He will also raise bilateral issues of concern, global and regional matters, and potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges.”

Blinken spoke to China’s foreign minister Qin Gang on Tuesday. According to the State Department, Blinken had discussed the importance of “maintaining open lines of communication” to “avoid miscalculation and conflict”. He also addressed a range of bilateral and global issues, and made it clear to his Chinese counterpart that the US would continue to use diplomatic engagements to raise “areas of concern” as well as “areas of potential cooperation”.

When Biden and Xi had met in Bali last year, they had agreed to remain engaged. According to a White House readout, Biden had told the Chinese leader that while the US will continue to “compete vigorously” with China, this competition must not “veer into conflict”. This required both sides to maintain open channels of communication, which is how Blinken’s visit was scheduled.

But days before he was to depart for Beijing in early February, the US discovered a Chinese surveillance balloon traversing across its continental territory. This led to public outrage and the trip being postponed. The US then accessed intelligence that suggested China was preparing to provide lethal arms to Russia to aid Moscow in its war in Ukraine and put pressure on Beijing from desist from doing so.

In May, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan met senior Chinese communist party foreign policy figure, Wang Yi in Vienna. HT had reported on May 11 that the conversation would lead to Blinken’s visit to China. A senior administration figure had then told HT that the visit did not in any way mean a “reset” in ties or a dilution of the US approach to China, as articulated in its national defence and national security strategy documents.

“Given the larger strategic environment, as well as domestic political mood in the US with the Congress keeping a vigilant eye on China, there is no possibility of a reset with Beijing. What Washington hopes for is finding a way to calm tempers. It also shows to the rest of the region which doesn’t want to get caught in a Washington-Beijing conflict that US is open to engagement. Diplomacy involves talking. And talking doesn’t mean agreement,” the person added.