Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a two-day visit to China on Sunday in the hope of easing bilateral tensions, in the first trip by a US foreign minister to Chinese soil in nearly five years.
Mr. Blinken met the Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, in a richly decorated state villa located in the old Diaoyutai gardens in Beijing where his Chinese hosts were then to organize a banquet.
Both walked on a red carpet and shook hands in front of a flag from each country, without comment.
If no one expects major progress as there are so many areas of friction, the idea remains to initiate a diplomatic thaw and maintain a dialogue to “responsibly manage the Sino-American relationship”, according to the Department of State.
Because time is running out. Next year will be an election deadline both in the United States and in Taiwan, which China considers to be one of its provinces that it must reunite, by force if necessary.
And a trifle can turn things around: thus, the visit of the head of American diplomacy was initially planned for February, in the wake of the meeting, last November, between American President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, in sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia.
But it was canceled at the last minute. In question: the overflight of American territory by a Chinese balloon, accused by Washington of being a “spy” aircraft, while Beijing assured that it was a meteorological machine having deviated from its trajectory.
During the visit of his Secretary of State to China, Joe Biden minimized the balloon episode. “I don’t think the leaders knew where it was, what was in it and what was going on,” Trump told reporters on Saturday. “I think it was more embarrassing than intentional.”
Joe Biden said he hoped to meet again with Xi Jinping “in the coming months” to “talk about our legitimate differences, but also about areas in which we can agree”.
The two leaders are expected to attend the upcoming G20 summit in September in New Delhi, and Xi has been invited to come to San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying tweeted on Sunday that Blinken’s visit would “help bring China-US relations back to what the two presidents agreed to in Bali.”
Prior to his departure, Antony Blinken said in Washington that his trip was to “open up direct lines of communication so that our two countries can manage our relationship responsibly, including by addressing certain challenges and misperceptions and to avoid calculation errors”.
“Intense competition requires continued diplomacy to ensure that it does not turn into confrontation or conflict,” he added, because “the world expects the United States and China cooperate”.
Among the main disputes, trade and the democratic self-governing island of Taiwan.
Ahead of Blinken’s visit, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said the United States should “respect China’s core concerns” and develop relations with Beijing “based on the mutual respect and equality, respecting their differences”.
Mr. Blinken’s visit is the first by a US Secretary of State to China since the October 2018 trip of his predecessor, Mike Pompeo, who was then the mastermind of the strategy of confrontation with Beijing in recent years. years of Donald Trump’s presidency.
The Biden administration has since maintained this hard line, going even further in some areas, including through the imposition of export controls to limit Beijing’s purchase and manufacture of high-end chips “used in applications military”.
But she wants to cooperate with China on crucial issues such as the climate. Mr. Blinken’s visit also comes as part of China is experiencing a heat wave, with a new temperature record for mid-June crossed Friday in Beijing, at 39.4°C.
For Danny Russel, a former senior official of the US State Department, each party has a stake in this visit: China hopes to avoid new American restrictions on technology and any new support for Taiwan. The United States wishes to prevent any incident likely to lead to a military confrontation.
“Mr. Blinken’s brief visit won’t solve any of the big problems in the U.S.-China relationship, or even necessarily the little ones. competitive,” said Russel, now vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.
“But his visit may well rekindle a much-needed face-to-face dialogue and send a signal that the two countries are moving from angry rhetoric at the media to more sober talks at behind closed doors”.
06/18/2023 14:40:36 – Beijing (AFP) – © 2023 AFP