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BEIJING — Foreign Minister Antony Blinken met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday, capping a series of talks aimed at defusing tensions between the two superpowers while leaving their most fiercely contentious issues unresolved.
Still, the meeting is the culmination of more than 10 hours of joint meetings Blinken has held with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, and could at least halt the downward spiral in bilateral ties.
“In general, both sides have had frank and deep talks,” Xi told Blinken in an opulent meeting room in the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square, according to footage broadcast on state TV.
“The Chinese side has made our position clear and the two sides have agreed to implement the joint agreements that President Biden and I reached in Bali,” Xi said, referring to their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 meeting end of last year.
“The two sides have also made progress and reached agreement on some specific issues, and that is very good,” Xi told the American delegation.
In the past, it has been customary for the Chinese leader to meet with visiting US foreign ministers, but Monday’s meeting was only confirmed 45 minutes before the two men shook hands
– a sign of how carefully this trip was planned.
The two sides left little to chance during Blinken’s two-day visit, keeping core disputes — over human rights, trade and dangerous military disputes in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait — off cameras.
The meeting followed a careful encounter between Blinken and Wang earlier Monday, during which the two taciturn officials greeted each other in a highly formal exchange, before engaging in closed talks that lasted more than three hours.
The two engaged in an “open and productive discussion,” with Blinken emphasizing “the importance of managing United States-US competition responsibly.” [China] through open channels of communication to ensure competition does not conflict,” said Matthew Miller, spokesman for the State Department, in a statement.
“The Secretary reiterated that the United States will continue to use its diplomacy to raise issues and advance the interests and values of the American people,” Miller said.
Blinking, Chinese senior officials promise to continue talks, signaling a slight thaw
For his part, Wang said Blinken the US needs to “think deeply” and work with China to avoid “strategic surprises,” according to China’s foreign ministry.
“We must reverse the downward spiral of Sino-US relations, push for a return to a healthy and stable course, and work together to find a right way for China and the United States to cope in the new era,” Wang said. accordig to advertisement.
The two sides would have to “make a choice between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict,” Wang said. He urged Washington to lift sanctions on China and stop promoting the “China threat theory.”
The emphasis on dialogue marked a departure from Beijing’s previous stance that Washington alone was to blame for the negative state of relations.
“Both sides know that Sino-US relations must return to normal,” said Zhu Feng, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Nanjing University. “A relationship between great countries requires competition, cooperation and dialogue – it must be interactive.”
However, Zhu did not believe that the Biden administration would really change course from suppressing China.
“China can still take this opportunity to say that if the US cannot respond effectively to its concerns, then of course China cannot respond effectively either.” [theirs],” he said.
Still, the shift in tone between the two sides over the past two days has been striking.
After the Chinese state media castigated Blinken as a meddling provocateur, they painted the visit in a positive light. Sunday’s talks “raised positive expectations in the international community,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a nationalist tabloid close to the Chinese Communist Party.
Several media outlets pointed out that relations between Washington and Beijing have been at their worst since diplomatic ties were established, but this presents an opportunity for improvement, they said.
“The whole world is waiting to find clues as to whether relations between the two countries can thaw,” the Global Times said.
Yet concerns remain that Washington will simply continue what Beijing sees as a strategy to contain China and stifle its development.
Questions have been raised on social media about Washington’s ability to deliver on its promises. Popular current affairs blogger Hang Ziya wrote that Blinken visited China “to obtain an official divorce certificate, not to get the relationship working again.”
One area where Beijing had no room for compromise was the issue of Taiwan, the island democracy that China claims as part of its territory.
Monday’s discussions build on Sunday’s modest gains, when Blinken and Qin agreed to meet again — in Washington — and hold “working-level” meetings to address specific challenges in the coming weeks.
Qin added that the two nations discussed increasing passenger flights between China and the United States and promoting exchanges of more students, scholars and businessmen. US officials have also been working to increase journalist visas for media wishing to cover the two countries.
US officials were far more positive about Sunday’s discussions than when they met with Chinese counterparts on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in February.
During those meetings, Washington angered Beijing after raising US concerns that China was considering providing lethal aid to Russia. Relations soured further when the United States shot down a high-altitude surveillance balloon that entered US airspace, canceling Blinken’s originally planned trip.
China’s reluctant reception for Blinken: It’s all about the economy
However, a senior State Department official said the United States and China made “progress” during this trip to Beijing on Washington’s three main goals: reestablishing communications at the highest level, voicing concerns, and exploring areas for cooperation.
The talks are likely to pave the way for follow-up visits to China by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen — a visit sought by Beijing, which is looking to boost investment amid an economic downturn — and possibly by Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Climate Commissioner John F. Kerry.
President Biden said Saturday he hopes to meet Xi in the coming months to discuss issues separating the two.
Xi could attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting in San Francisco in November, where he could meet with Biden. Their last meeting last November on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia helped ease tensions.
But amid efforts to show progress in Beijing, US officials declined to confirm any movement to resume military communications, a key priority at the meetings given the numerous dangerous bottlenecks in recent months. These include a near-collision of warships near Taiwan and a flyby of an aggressive warplane over the South China Sea.
Beijing sees the resumption of such channels as potentially legitimizing US military activities against China.
Chinese officials stressed that key sticking points remain unresolved, such as US military aid to Taiwan, which the country sees as a violation of its sovereignty, and US export controls on technology, measures the country sees as a sign of trying to make China weak to keep.
But they also underscored a desire to turn a new page, saying the current state of relations “does not serve the fundamental interests of the two peoples and does not meet the shared expectations of the international community,” according to the State Department.
Blinken’s agenda on Monday included meetings with US business leaders from the healthcare, automotive and entertainment sectors on the state of the business climate in China. He also meets with students and graduates from exchange programs, whose numbers have plummeted since the recent downturn in US-China relations.
Tobin reported from Taipei, Taiwan. Vic Chiang in Taipei contributed to this report.