Antony Blinken will meet Xi Jinping in Beijing and become the first US secretary of state to sit down with the Chinese leader in nearly six years, Britain’s Financial Times reported Friday.
It is also the first cabinet secretary of US President Joe Biden to visit China.
Sources quoted by the Financial Times said the US diplomat would meet Xi during the two-day visit starting on Sunday.
Blinken is visiting China after Biden and Xi agreed in Bali last November to find ways to stabilize the turbulent relationship between the US and China.
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.
Tensions rose last August when former Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei sparked strong protests from the Chinese government, which viewed the trip as a provocation and organized military exercises around the country on an unprecedented scale. island launched.
A US Air Force general this week urged US officials to prepare for a war against China that begins in 2025.
In the memo, General Mike Minihan, head of Air Mobility Command and formerly deputy chief of Indo-Pacific Command, wrote that “instinct” tells him that a war against China is “imminent” and urged a willingness to “go on target.” to shoot”. “.
“I hope I’m wrong, but my gut tells me we’re going to war in 2025,” he noted.
Blinken will also meet with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official who recently replaced Yang Jiechi.
He will also meet Qin Gang, the former Chinese ambassador to the US and now the Asian country’s foreign minister.
Blinken will be the first foreign minister 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: DN
