The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, will land in Beijing on Sunday and vows to try to prevent disagreements between the US and China from “turning into conflict”.
Since US President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in 2021, Blinken will be the top US official to visit China and the first secretary of state to visit Beijing in the past five years.
Shortly before departure, Blinken emphasized the importance of establishing and maintaining better lines of communication between the US and China.
The head of US diplomacy defended the need to ensure “that competition between the two countries does not become a conflict” due to avoidable misunderstandings.
On Sunday, Blinken will embark on two days of intense negotiations, starting with a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, and a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is also scheduled for Monday, according to the US State Department.
For Washington, Blinken’s trip to Beijing is mainly aimed at re-establishing direct lines of communication with the rival power and managing tensions to avoid an accidental confrontation after several months of turmoil triggered by the alleged spy balloon incident. . which flew over US soil in February.
“We are not going to Beijing with the intention of making progress or bringing about transformations,” admitted Foreign Ministry head for Asia Daniel Kritenbrink.
Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing follows a conversation last November between United States President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia.
Multiple points of contention
The points of disagreement are many: the two countries face off on Taiwan issues, over Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea, and over the strategy of electronic chips or fentanyl, a potent opioid painkiller.
On the issue of Taiwan, China considers the island as one of its provinces, which it hopes to reunite with the rest of its territory through peaceful means, but not without ruling out the use of force.
In recent days, President Xi has shown a willingness to ease tensions with the United States – speaking with US tech company co-founder Bill Gates on Friday – and assured that the US and China can and should cooperate “for the benefit of both countries”.
“I believe that the basis of Sino-US relations is people. (…) In the current world situation, we can carry out various initiatives that will benefit our two countries and all of humanity,” Xi told Gates.
This Saturday, President Biden, commenting on Blinken’s visit to China, said he was confident in the possibility of a summit with Xi in the coming months, ending a long period in which the two countries were practically canceled all communication channels.
Earlier this month, the Chinese government rejected a request from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for a meeting on the sidelines of a security conference in Singapore.
But on Friday, Austin said he was confident he could meet his counterpart soon despite signs of deep disagreements on several issues.
This week, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry repeated allegations that Washington continues to carry out computer attacks against Chinese companies after Qin had a telephone conversation with Blinken asking the United States to respect Beijing’s interests.
Source: DN
