Antony Blinken will meet Xi Jinping in Beijing, becoming the first US secretary of state to sit down with the Chinese leader in nearly six years, Britain’s Financial Times newspaper reported on Friday.
He is also the first US President Joe Biden’s cabinet secretary to visit China.
Sources cited by the Financial Times said the US diplomat would meet Xi during the two-day visit that begins on Sunday.
Blinken is visiting China after Biden and Xi agreed in Bali last November that they should find ways to stabilize the turbulent US-China relationship.
Relations between Beijing and Washington have deteriorated rapidly in recent years due to a trade and technology war, disputes over human rights, the status of Hong Kong and Taiwan, or the sovereignty of the South China Sea.
Tension increased last August, when the visit to Taipé by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of two US Representatives led to strong protests by the Chinese government, which considered the trip a provocation and launched military exercises around the island on a large scale without precedents.
A US Air Force general this week urged US officials to be prepared for a war against China starting in 2025.
In the memo, Gen. Mike Minihan, who heads the Air Mobility Command and previously served as deputy chief of the Indo-Pacific Command, wrote that “gut instinct” tells him a war against China “is imminent” and urged to be ready to shoot “on target”. “.
“I hope I’m wrong, but my gut tells me we’re going to go to war in 2025,” he said.
Blinken will also meet with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official who recently replaced Yang Jiechi.
He will also meet with Qin Gang, former Chinese ambassador to the US and now China’s foreign minister.
Blinken will be the first secretary of state to meet Xi Jinping in China since Rex Tillerson visited the country in 2017, the first year of Donald Trump’s administration. Mike Pompeo, who succeeded Tillerson, visited China the following year but did not meet Xi.
Source: TSF
