WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Antony Blinken will seek to reduce the chances of miscalculation on a rare visit to Beijing, officials said.
The State Department confirmed that Blinken will travel this weekend to Beijing on the first trip by a top US diplomat in nearly five years, rescheduling a visit that was scrapped in February.
Ahead of the trip, Blinken spoke by telephone to Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and stressed “the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage” the relationship, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Relations between the world’s two largest economies have tanked in recent years in different issues.
Daniel Kritenbrink, the top State Department official for East Asia, said that the United States was “realistic” about what Blinken could achieve.
“We’re not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation,” Kritenbrink told reporters.
Instead, Blinken is coming with a “sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible.”
The United States hopes the trip “will, at a minimum, reduce the risk of miscalculation so that we do not veer into potential conflict.”
US policymakers across party lines have spoken of China as the foremost US competitor, even as President Joe Biden also focuses on countering Russia over its attack of Ukraine.
“We know efforts to shape or reform China over several decades have failed,” said Kurt Campbell, who leads Asia policy at the White House.
“We expect China to be around on the world stage for the rest of our lifetimes,” he told reporters.
China struck a confrontational tone in a readout of the call with Blinken, saying that Qin had warned that relations between the two countries had faced “new difficulties and challenges” since the beginning of the year.
“It’s clear who is responsible,” Qin said, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
“China has always viewed and managed China-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation put forward by President Xi Jinping,” he added.
Blinken will be the first secretary of state to visit Beijing since a brief 2018 stop by Mike Pompeo.
Biden and Xi met in Bali in November and agreed to try to prevent tensions from soaring out of control, including by sending Blinken to Beijing. — AFP
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