Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to visit China in the coming weeks for talks with top officials, possibly including President Xi Jinping, people familiar with the matter said, as the US looks to resume high-level communication despite continued tensions.
Blinken had planned to visit Beijing in February but scrapped the trip after the US identified what it said was a Chinese spy balloon crossing over the continental US. The exact timing for Blinken’s visit is still fluid, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations.
A State Department spokesman said the agency had no travel to announce and that Blinken’s previously scrapped visit would take place when conditions allow.
The visit would be part of President Joe Biden’s effort to restore some normalcy to a relationship that continues to be roiled by tense military encounters, punitive economic measures and accusations from both sides that the other is jeopardizing global stability. A Blinken trip to Beijing was one of the main outcomes from last year’s meeting between Biden and Xi in Bali, Indonesia. The two leaders haven’t spoken since then, with Biden unable to secure a phone call with Xi after the spy balloon incident.
On Monday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned of a “growing aggressiveness” by China after interceptions of a US ship and surveillance aircraft in recent weeks. “It won’t be long before somebody gets hurt,” Kirby said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin shot back with criticism that the US is “sending warships halfway around the world to China’s doorstep in a provocative way.”
“This is not about ‘freedom of navigation,’ but hegemony of navigation and distinct military provocation,” he said.
White House Sees ‘Growing Aggressiveness’ by Chinese Forces (1)
At the same time, Kirby said the two sides were making progress in opening other channels towards setting up visits for US Cabinet secretaries.
While China rebuffed US efforts to arrange a meeting between the two countries’ defense ministers at a forum in Singapore last week, high-level contact has resumed in other areas. Daniel Kritenbrink, the top US State Department official for Asia, had “candid” talks with Chinese officials on Monday. His trip followed two days of talks between National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and his counterpart Wang Yi last month and a visit by CIA Director William Burns, while top commerce and trade officials have also met recently.
The two sides remain very far apart on major issues. Beijing is unhappy with what it sees as Washington’s tighter ties with Taipei. It also sees recent efforts by the US and its allies to pushback against economic coercion and “derisk” from China, as well criticism of human-rights conditions in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, as steps to contain the development of the world’s second largest economy.
With China’s armed forces coming into more frequent contact with US military assets in Asia, the “potential for miscalculation” is “real and growing,” but Chinese officials have rebuffed US attempts to formalize communications during a potential crisis, White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Tuesday.
“During the Cold War, we managed to effectively create mechanisms that would allow for crisis communication in moments of unintended conflict or tension,” Campbell said at an event hosted by the Hudson Institute think-tank. “It’d be fair to say we’ve been unable to do that yet with China. China has been reluctant to embrace and engage in some of these mechanisms.”
Chinese delegates attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore — Asia’s premier defense forum — said last weekend that a military hotline between the countries is open and can be accessed at any time.
In response to reporters’ questions Tuesday, Kirby said that the objective of a recent trip to China by Kritenbrink and NSC’s senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran, was to keep communication open between the two countries and pave the way for future visits, including at higher levels of government.
“And they felt that they had good useful, conversations with PRC officials about that and to that end, and I think you’ll see us speak to future visits here in the near future, but I just don’t want to get ahead of the schedule,” Kirby said.
--With assistance from Iain Marlow and Colum Murphy.
(Updates with elaboration on China’s stance from sixth paragraph.)
