In order to maintain communication between China and the United States to avoid conflict, the foreign minister will meet with the head of state before returning home.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Monday, June 19, a senior US official said on condition of anonymity. The meeting, which has not been confirmed by the Chinese side, is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on the second and final day of this visit, which is expected to ease tensions between the two major powers.
Anthony Blinken met with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) top diplomatic official Wang Yi for the first time on Monday. He told the US Secretary of State that China and the United States must choose between “cooperation or conflict.” Aside from the very thorny issue of ties between the United States and Taiwan, an island claimed by Beijing that is at the heart of disputes between the two powers, bilateral relations remain strained on numerous issues.
“Between dialogue and confrontation”
These include rivalry in technologies, American sanctions against Chinese digital giants, trade, treatment of China’s Muslim Uyghur minority, or even Chinese claims in the South China Sea. “The foreign minister’s trip to Beijing comes at a critical juncture in Sino-US relations,” Wang Yi told his interlocutor, according to Chinese television CCTV. “It is necessary to make a choice between dialogue and confrontation, cooperation and conflict,” said Wang Yi, who is in charge of China’s foreign policy in China.
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Wang Yi also strongly reaffirmed his country’s position on the Taiwan issue amid what Beijing sees as a steady rapprochement between Washington and the Taiwanese authorities on the part of an independence party in recent years. China considers Taiwan one of its provinces that it has not successfully reunified with the rest of its territory since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. “Upholding national unity is always at the heart of China’s fundamental interests” and “On this issue, China will not compromise or make any concessions,” Wang Yi told Antony Blinken.
“Hopes in the American People”
The US Secretary of State was received on Sunday by Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who is one step below Wang Yi in the Chinese hierarchy. The two men had spoken for seven and a half hours, more than expected, and the two countries agreed to keep communications between them to avoid conflict.
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Last week in Beijing, Xi Jinping spoke with another American, former Microsoft CEO and philanthropist Bill Gates. “You are the first American friend I met this year,” Xi Jinping told him, according to the New China news agency. “We have always placed our hopes in the American people and hope that the friendship between the two peoples will endure,” he said, intent on sending a message of reassurance.
“Constructive” discussions
The two countries announced on Sunday that Qin Gang had accepted an offer from the US Secretary of State to visit the United States at a date to be determined. The exchange between the two men, which ended in the evening with a banquet at Diaoyutai’s garden-dotted diplomatic complex, was “frank, substantive and constructive,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller. Anthony Blinken specifically stressed “the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication on all issues to reduce the risk of miscalculation and miscalculation,” he said.
The Chinese foreign minister told his American counterpart that relations between Beijing and Washington are “at their lowest level” since diplomatic relations were established in 1979, according to Chinese diplomats. “This does not correspond to the fundamental interests of our two peoples, nor to the common expectations of the international community,” he stressed.
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Antony Blinken’s visit is the first by a US Secretary of State to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo’s trip in October 2018.