US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet China’s top envoy and potentially President Xi Jinping on Monday, the final day of a trip to Beijing aimed at improving the strained relationship.
The top US diplomat met with Foreign Minister Qin Gang for seven and a half hours on Sunday, longer than expected, with both sides agreeing to maintain communication as they seek to avoid conflict.
Neither side has confirmed a meeting between Blinken and Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, whose November meeting with President Joe Biden in Bali raised cautious hopes of a thaw in relations.
But diplomats see a likely meeting with Xi.
Blinken must first meet with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, whose position in the Communist Party is above the foreign minister.
Tensions have skyrocketed between the world’s two largest economies in recent years over issues ranging from trade to technology to Taiwan.
US officials say they don’t expect major breakthroughs from the Blinken talks, but they hope to reopen regular lines of communication to prevent the incidents from escalating into a major conflict.
The two countries said on Sunday that Qin had accepted an offer to visit Washington again at a later date.
Sunday’s talks, including a banquet dinner at the state guesthouse in Diaoyutai Gardens, were “frank, substantive and constructive,” said State Department spokesman Matthew Miller.
Blinken stressed “the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication on the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” Miller said.
Behind closed doors, Qin told Blinken that US-China relations “are at their lowest since the establishment of diplomatic relations”, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
“It does not conform to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, nor to the common expectations of the international community,” Qin said during the talks at the ancient Diaoyutai Gardens.
But he issued a warning to Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing, which has launched two live-fire military drills near the island since August, angered by the actions of key US lawmakers.
“The Taiwan issue is the core of China’s core interests, the most important issue in China-US relations and the most significant risk,” Qin said.
A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the talks went beyond the usual talking points, including on Taiwan.
“It was a real conversation,” he said.
Last week, Xi struck a conciliatory note when he met with fellow prominent US software mogul turned philanthropist Bill Gates.
“You are the first American friend I met in Beijing this year,” Xi told Gates in Beijing, according to People’s Daily.
“We have always pinned our hopes on the American people and hoped for continued friendship between the peoples of the two countries,” he added.
tbs/oho/kma