- The trip was suspended after a Chinese spy balloon was found
- First US Secretary of State to visit Beijing
- China accepted Blinken’s invitation to visit the US
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday on the last day of a two-day visit to China aimed at de-escalating tensions with China. The possibility of this meeting being held was already being mooted and considered important for the success of the Yatra. One hour before this meeting, an official of the US State Department made an announcement in this regard. This meeting was held in the ‘Great Hall of the People’. Had this meeting not taken place, efforts to restore and maintain dialogue at the senior level would have suffered a major setback.
First US Secretary of State to visit Beijing
In previous meetings between Blinken and senior Chinese officials, both sides have expressed a willingness to negotiate but no willingness to back down from their respective tough stances. Blinken is the first high-level US official to visit China since US President Joe Biden took office. He is the first US Secretary of State to visit Beijing in five years. This is likely to start a new round of meetings between senior US and Chinese officials. There is a possibility that this could be followed by a meeting between Xi and Biden in the coming months. Earlier Monday, Blinken held a nearly three-hour meeting with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, a US official said.
China-US relations should be improved
China’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Blinken’s visit came at a time when “China-US relations are at a critical stage and a choice must be made between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict”, blaming the ‘US side’s misunderstanding of China’. . It is at a ‘low level’ at the time, which led to ‘wrong policies towards China’. It said that it was the responsibility of the US to ‘prevent the deterioration of China-US relations and restore them to a healthy and stable state’.
According to China’s Foreign Ministry, Wang “demanded that the US stop exaggerating the threat theory from China, end illegal unilateral sanctions against China, stop suppressing China’s technological development, and refrain from arbitrarily interfering in China’s internal affairs.” The US State Department said Blinken ‘stressed the importance of managing competition between the US and China responsibly through open channels of communication to ensure that this competition does not turn into conflict.
China accepted Blinken’s invitation to visit the US
Earlier on Sunday, Blinken had an extended conversation with his Chinese counterpart Chin Kang for about six hours. In the meeting, both sides agreed to continue high-level talks. However, there were no signs of any progress in resolving the issues between the two countries. Both sides said China had accepted Blinken’s invitation to visit Washington. China also clarified that ‘China-US relations are at an all-time low’, US officials have also said this many times. Biden and Xi agreed to visit Blinken at a meeting in Bali last year. However, in February, Blinken canceled his trip to China after an alleged Chinese spy balloon was spotted in US airspace.
