US’s top diplomat meets counterpart in China for high-stake talks amid faint hopes
The US Secretary of State has met his Chinese counterpart amid increased tensions between Beijing and Washington amid little hope for much progress in the talks.
On Sunday, Antony Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Beijing on his two-day- trip. This is the first visit by a top American diplomat to China in five years.
Both China and the US have expressed hopes for improving communication, although, the world’s two largest economies have clearly said they do not expect a significant breakthrough.
The United States had already announced that the current frosty bilateral ties between Beijing and Washington left little space for any chances of amelioration of diplomatic and economic relations during this rare visit.
Ties have deteriorated between China and the US on an array of issues including trade, technology, and regional security.
With the US refusing to recognize China’s core concerns, including its sovereignty over Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) under the ‘One China’ policy, the specter that the two might one day clash militarily is raising.
The US has also provoked China in its attempts to expand a “NATO-like” military alliance in the Asia-Pacific region.
In recent months, the US has reached deals on troop deployments in southern Japan and the northern Philippines, both strategically close to Chinese Taipei.
However, prior to his visit to Beijing, Blinken had said the trip aims to establish channels of communication to avoid the ongoing rivalry between the two nations to spiral into a military conflict.
He said to avoid a conflict with China they should start with “communicating.”
Blinken is the highest-ranking US official to visit since President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
He had postponed this trip, which had been scheduled for February, after a Chinese climate research balloon flew over US territory.
The US military shot down the Chinese balloon, alleging it was used by the Chinese side for espionage, while China insisted that it was used for meteorological and other scientific purposes and had strayed into US airspace accidentally.
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