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Antony Blinken begins China visit that spy balloon put off Antony Blinken begins China visit that spy balloon put off
(about 8 hours later)
US secretary of state’s trip seeks to clear the air but issues such as Taiwan, semiconductors and human rights leave limited room for compromise US secretary of state’s trip seeks to clear the air but issues such as Taiwan and Ukraine leave limited room for compromise
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, arrived in China on Sunday on the highest-level trip by a US official in nearly five years – one due to have happened four months ago, until a Chinese spy balloon was caught flying over US soil. Antony Blinken has arrived in Beijing on the highest-level trip by a US secretary of state since 2018, with his aides signalling he was seeking to build lines of communication rather than secure any practical breakthrough agreements.
Neither side expects breakthroughs during Blinken’s two-day visit, with the world’s two largest economies at odds on an array of issues such as trade, technology and regional security. The expectations, set deliberately low for the two-day talks, allow room for the world’s two largest economies to air their differences over the Taiwan strait, technology, human rights and the war in Ukraine. Washington believes the talks will be worthwhile if they simply reduce the risk of misunderstanding, and start to reopen atrophied channels of communication.
The two countries have increasingly voiced an interest in seeking greater stability and see a narrow window before elections next year both in the United States and Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy that Beijing has not ruled out seizing by force. On arrival, Blinken went into a round of heavily prepared meetings, including shaking hands with the Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang.
After a cordial summit between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in Bali in November, Blinken’s subsequent China visit was abruptly postponed by the Chinese spy balloon affair that began unfolding in January. Previous efforts to open talks at this level foundered in February when Blinken postponed a planned visit, accusing China of sending a surveillance air balloon over Alaska. China accused the US of hysteria.
Speaking in the US capital before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to “responsibly manage our relationship” by finding ways to avoid “miscalculations” between the countries. The US, despite adopting a hardline bipartisan stance on China domestically, believes it needs to draw its European allies towards a consensus position built around the proposition that the west must de-risk its relations with China rather than seek to decouple the Chinese and western economies.
“Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict,” he said. Many European countries are joining the US in seeking to screen Chinese investments in sensitive areas, whilst insisting it is acceptable to cooperate with China on issues such as health, climate change, global macro-economic stability and trade – issues that are not regarded as essential to national security. The US also speculates that difficulties in the Chinese post-Covid economic recovery might make Beijing more cooperative.
Blinken was speaking alongside the Singaporean foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, who said the region wanted the US both to stay as a power and to find ways to coexist with a rising China. On Sunday, Qin greeted Blinken and his group at the door to a villa on the grounds of Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, as the two made small talk in English before shaking hands in front of Chinese and American flags.
Blinken’s “trip is essential, but not sufficient”, Balakrishnan said. “There are fundamental differences in outlook, in values. And it takes time for mutual respect and strategic trust to be built in.” Blinken is also expected to meet with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, and possibly the president, Xi Jinping. The Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates last week met with Xi so it would seem a diplomatic rebuff if he did not find time for Blinken.
As part of the Biden administration’s focus on keeping allies close, Blinken spoke by telephone with his counterparts from both Japan and South Korea during his 20-hour trans-Pacific journey. There is an expectation Blinken’s visit will pave the way for further bilateral meetings in coming months, including possible trips by the US Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, and the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo. It could also open a path for meetings between Xi and Joe Biden at multilateral summits later in the year.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, travelled separately to Tokyo for three-way meetings involving Japan, South Korea and the Philippines. The US president said on Saturday he hoped to meet with Xi in the next several months. The Shanghai-based news site the Paper quoted Wu Xinbo, the head of US studies at Fudan University, as saying Blinken was expected “to establish a road map and timetable with the Chinese side on senior bilateral exchanges during the trip”.
In recent months the US has reached deals on troop deployments in southern Japan and the northern Philippines, both strategically close to Taiwan. Biden has made light of the balloon incident, saying: “I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional. I don’t think that the leadership knew where it was or knew what was in it and knew what was going on.”
Beijing carried out major military drills around Taiwan in August, seen as practice for an invasion, after a visit by Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives. Before departing for Beijing, Blinken said his trip had three main objectives: setting up mechanisms for crisis management; advancing US and allies’ interests and speaking directly about related concerns; and exploring areas of potential cooperation.
In April, China launched three days of war games after the Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-wen, visited the US and met the current speaker, Kevin McCarthy. “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.”
Ahead of Blinken’s visit, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the US needed to “respect China’s core concerns” and work together with Beijing. Particularly alarming for China’s neighbours has been its reluctance to engage in regular military-to-military talks with Washington, despite repeated US attempts. The US remains concerned that China will provide overt military support to Russia in the war against Ukraine.
“The US needs to give up the illusion of dealing with China ‘from a position of strength’. China and the US must develop relations on the basis of mutual respect and equality, respect their difference in history, culture, social system and development path.” Ahead of the visit, the deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs, Kurt Campbell, said: “We can’t let the disagreements that might divide us stand in the way of moving forward on the global priorities that require us all to work together.”
Blinken is the first top US diplomat to visit Beijing since a brief stop in 2018 by his predecessor Mike Pompeo, who championed confronting China in the final years of Donald Trump’s presidency. Chinese counterparts have called for a stop to what they say is a “downward spiral in the relationship”.
The Biden administration has kept in place Trump’s hard line in practice, if not tone, and has gone further in areas, including working to ban exports to China of high-end semiconductors that have military uses. Asked what might motivate China to hold productive talks, Campbell said it could be that they too saw some of the risks associated with accidents and inadvertence.
Unlike Trump, who is running again for president, the Biden administration has said it is willing to work with China on narrow areas of cooperation such as climate – as Beijing sweats in record mid-June temperatures. He added: “Intense competition requires intense diplomacy if we’re going to manage tensions. That is the only way to clear up misperceptions, to signal, to communicate, and to work together where and when our interests align.”
Danny Russel, who was the top diplomat on east Asia during Barack Obama’s second term, said that each side had priorities – with China seeking to forestall additional US restrictions on technology or support for Taiwan, and the US eager to prevent an incident that could spiral into a military confrontation. Blinken spoke to his South Korean and Japanese counterparts before the trip to reassure them of his intentions and the parameters of the discussions.
“Blinken’s brief visit will not bring resolution to any of the big issues in the US-China relationship or even necessarily to the small ones. Neither will it stop either side from continuing with their competitive agendas,” said Russel, now a vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. In May, the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Wang Yi held what both sides described as “candid, substantive and constructive discussions” on Taiwan and Russia’s war in Ukraine, over two days in Vienna.
“But his visit may well restart badly needed face-to-face dialogue and send a signal that both countries are moving from angry rhetoric at the press podium to sober discussions behind closed doors.” And earlier in June, two senior US officials – Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Sarah Beran, the senior director for China and Taiwan affairs at the National Security Council – visited Beijing for “candid, constructive, fruitful discussions”.
Xi offered a hint of a possible willingness to reduce tensions, saying in a meeting with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Friday that the US and China could cooperate to “benefit our two countries.”
“I believe that the foundation of Sino-US relations lies in the people,” Xi said to Gates. “Under the current world situation, we can carry out various activities that benefit our two countries, the people of our countries, and the entire human race.”
Biden told White House reporters on Saturday he was “hoping that over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have, but also how ... to get along”. Chances could come at a G20 leaders’ gathering in September in New Delhi and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November in San Francisco that the US is hosting.
With Agence France-Presse and Reuters