U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing on Sunday after months of urging by the Biden administration for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to reestablish normal bilateral communications.
Blinken is the highest-level American official to set foot in China since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, and the first secretary of state to visit since 2018, when his predecessor Mike Pompeo visited China for one day.
Blinken’s arrival kickstarts two days of meetings with senior Chinese officials for talks on managing U.S.-China tensions. In a statement on June 14, the State Department said Blinken “will discuss the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the U.S.-PRC relationship.”
“He will also raise bilateral issues of concern, global and regional matters, and potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges.”
Blinken’s trip was previously scheduled in February but it was postponed after Washington shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over U.S. airspace on Feb. 4. Since then, high level communications have been rare.
China has refused regular military communications despite repeated attempts by U.S. officials to engage.
Biden before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Saturday morning told reporters that he believes “China has some legitimate difficulties unrelated to the United States.”
“One of the things that that balloon caused was, not so much that it got shot down, but I don’t think the [Chinese] leadership knew where it was and knew what was in it and knew what was going on,” the president said.
“I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,” he added, possibly pointing to ongoing disunity within the CCP’s ranks between long-waring factions of the party.
“And so, I’m hoping that, over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along.”
Over June 18–19, Blinken is expected to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, and possibly Chinese leader Xi Jinping, U.S. officials said.
3 Main Objectives
Speaking at a news conference on Friday before departing for Beijing, Blinken said the trip had three main objectives: Setting up mechanisms for crisis management, advancing U.S. and allies’ interests and speaking directly about related concerns, and exploring areas of potential cooperation.
“If we want to make sure, as we do, that the competition that we have with China doesn’t veer into conflict. The place you start is with communicating,” Blinken said. He said he would also be raising the issue of U.S. citizens detained in China on charges Washington sees as politically motivated.
Prospects for any major breakthroughs are dim as ties between the two countries have already become increasingly strained in recent years over a wide range of issues as the CCP more overtly pursues its socialist world view.
But there is an expectation that Blinken’s visit will pave the way for more bilateral meetings in coming months, including possible trips by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. It could also set the stage for meetings between Xi and Biden at multilateral summits later in the year.
Concerns mount that the United States and China’s relations may devolve into a kinetic war.
Any escalation between the two largest economies in the world could majorly impact global security and stability on multiple fronts, from financial markets, to trade routes and practices, and global supply chains.
CCP has been preparing its military and population for conflict. Twice in the past month, Xi has warned the Chinese people that they must prepare for “extreme scenarios.” Likewise, the regime is attempting to build up its domestic industrial and economic base in order to ensure continued operation in the event of war.
Amid social instability at home, Xi has ordered the regime’s military wing to be ready to conquer Taiwan by 2027, although it’s unclear if the regime has committed to actually conducting such an invasion. Since the start of his presidency, Biden has said multiple times that the United States would defend Taiwan in the event of an attempted invasion from China.
Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had met in person for the first time in November 2022 on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Indonesia. Their meeting had briefly signaled positive bilateral ties.
The United States and China are currently also at odds over a range of issues, from trade and U.S. efforts to hold back China’s semiconductor industry, to the CCP’s human rights violations, the regime’s military aggression in the South China Sea, the flow of fentanyl precursors from China to the United States, and Americans detained in China.
The CCP is developing military capabilities specifically designed to overcome and annihilate U.S. systems in the Indo-Pacific. These include new aircraft carriers, space, and counterspace capabilities, and the largest nuclear expansion since the Cold War.
Following his China visit, Blinken will travel to London June 16–21 for the Ukraine Recovery Conference to encourage international support among public and private sectors to aid Ukraine in fighting Russia, the State Department said.
Andrew Thornebrooke and Reuters contributed to this report.
