secretary of state china trip

Blinken set for high-stakes China trip this weekend as U.S. pushes for a 'thaw'

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit China this weekend, a high-stakes step in the U.S. push to i mprove ties between the world’s fractious superpowers .

Blinken will travel to Beijing on Friday to hold talks with senior Chinese officials, the State Department announced Wednesday, a long-awaited rescheduling of a visit that was canceled after an alleged Chinese spy balloon was found flying over sensitive American military sites.

China's Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed the trip, saying Blinken would visit Sunday to Monday, state media reported.

But if that sounds like evidence of a “thaw” between Washington and Beijing, which President Joe Biden predicted after months of deepening tensions , the signals from China appear less encouraging.A call between Blinken and his Chinese counterpart appeared to be interpreted in vastly different ways by each side.

The State Department issued a neutral statement after the call that talked about keeping open lines of communication, while the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry openly lambasted the U.S. 

“Since the beginning of the year, China-U.S. relations have encountered new difficulties and challenges,” Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said, according to his government’s readout of the telephone conversation. “The U.S. side should respect and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs, and stop harming China’s sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition.”

U.S. officials have downplayed the Beijing broadsides. White House Indo-Pacific Coordinator Kurt Campbell told reporters on a call that “we’ve seen other signals that they recognize that diplomacy with Washington is still important.”

The differing tones of the statements nonetheless highlight how far apart the U.S. and China still appear to be.

“What China is pursuing is maximum clarity, exactly opposite to the ‘ambiguity’ endorsed by the U.S.,” said Lu Xiang, a Hong Kong-based professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top Chinese government-affiliated think tank.

The U.S. readout of the call showed its “desire to truly improve U.S.-China relations,” Lu said. Even with Blinken’s visit, “the divergence between these two countries will continue for quite a long time.”

The already contentious relationship has sunk to a decades-low nadir since the spy balloon saga, with ties frayed further by Taiwan , Russia’s war in Ukraine and recent news of a Chinese spy base in Cuba . Beijing has blamed Washington, arguing public U.S. efforts at conciliation are undermined by sanctions and other moves to contain its rise.  

There is evidence the animus is not just between governments, too.

On Tuesday, police in Hong Kong arrested a man from mainland China on suspicion of spray-painting anti-U.S. graffiti on the city’s U.S. Consulate. Video from local broadcaster TVB showed the wall of the building sprayed white with Chinese characters meaning “double standards,” alongside the English word “hegemony” — meaning the dominance of one country over others.

Both Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have shown some willingness to move on from the “silly balloon” incident, as Biden put it, and mend their tattered ties. But the Americans say their attempts to re-establish high-level diplomacy have been rebuffed.

China has continued to declare its unhappiness with the U.S. approach of trying to restrict certain high-tech exports to China over national security concerns and criticizing it on human rights — while trying to protect their $600 billion trading relationship.

There have been meetings between senior officials. But China declined a rendezvous between the two countries’ defense chiefs, and a long-awaited telephone call between Biden and Xi has not happened. 

Blinken’s visit to Beijing, the first by a secretary of state since 2018 and the first Cabinet-level trip there by a Biden administration official, will raise hopes of a breakthrough.

He will meet with senior Chinese officials “to discuss the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage” the relationship with Washington, State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said. “He will also raise bilateral issues of concern, global and regional matters and potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges.”

The U.S. says it wants to keep open communications with the aim of “reducing the risk of miscalculation,” Assistant Secretary of State Dan Kritenbrink told reporters.

There have been a number of recent close calls between U.S. and Chinese aircraft and ships in the South China Sea . Beijing fiercely declares ownership over the resource-rich shipping hot spot, a claim contested by its neighbors and not recognized by international law.

Blinken will also travel to London to meet with his counterparts from the U.K., Ukraine and elsewhere and to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference, the State Department said.

The U.S. wants to “de-risk” its relationship with Beijing — newfangled jargon that essentially means trading with China while restricting certain exports, such as technology that can be used for military purposes. Meanwhile, the U.S. wants to continue calling out China on issues such as human rights, Taiwan and Beijing’s growing assertiveness in the South China Sea.

Campbell, the White House’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, said the Biden administration is for “de-risking but not decoupling.” China “will take provocative steps, from the Taiwan Strait to Cuba, and we will push back,” he added, “but intense competition requires intense diplomacy if we're going to manage tensions.”

For many in and around the Chinese government, that is unacceptable, and it looks like the U.S. is trying to have it both ways.

“Every time it talks about meeting, the United States is keen to play games with China and create the false illusion that they are eager to communicate,” Yuyuan Tantian, a prominent social media commentator affiliated with China’s government-controlled broadcaster, CCTV, said Tuesday. “But at the same time, they are repeatedly testing and provoking on issues of China’s bottom line and principles.”

Alexander Smith is a senior reporter for NBC News Digital based in London.

Abigail Williams is a producer and reporter for NBC News covering the State Department.

Watch CBS News

Blinken arrives in Beijing amid major diplomatic tensions with China

Updated on: June 17, 2023 / 9:29 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing early Sunday on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to try to cool exploding U.S.-China tensions that have set many around the world on edge.

Blinken was to begin two days of talks with senior Chinese officials in the afternoon. He is the highest-level American official to visit China since President Biden took office and the first secretary of state to make the trip in five years.

The trip comes after he postponed plans to visit in February after the shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon over the U.S. 

Yet prospects for any significant breakthrough on the most vexing issues facing the planet's two largest economies are slim, as already ties have grown increasingly fraught in recent years. Animosity and recriminations have steadily escalated over a series of disagreements that have implications for global security and stability.

Blinken plans to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday, top diplomat Wang Yi, and possibly President Xi Jinping on Monday, according to U.S. officials.

Biden and Xi agreed to Blinken's trip early at a meeting last year in Bali. It came within a day of happening in February but was delayed by the diplomatic and political tumult brought on by the discovery of what the U.S. says was a Chinese spy balloon flying across the United States that was shot down.

The list of disagreements and potential conflict points is long: ranging from trade with Taiwan, human rights conditions in China to Hong Kong, as well as the Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea to Russia's war in Ukraine.

U.S. officials said before Blinken's departure from Washington on Friday that he would raise each of them, though neither side has shown any inclination to back down on their positions.

Shortly before leaving, Blinken emphasized the importance of the U.S. and China establishing and maintaining better lines of communication. The U.S. wants to make sure "that the competition we have with China doesn't veer into conflict" due to avoidable misunderstandings, he told reporters.

Biden and Xi had made commitments to improve communications "precisely so that we can make sure we are communicating as clearly as possible to avoid possible misunderstandings and miscommunications," Blinken said Friday.

Xi offered a hint of a possible willingness to reduce tensions, saying in a meeting with Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates on Friday that the United States and China can cooperate to "benefit our two countries."

"I believe that the foundation of Sino-U.S. relations lies in the people," Xi said to Gates. "Under the current world situation, we can carry out various activities that benefit our two countries, the people of our countries, and the entire human race."

Biden told White House reporters Saturday he was "hoping that over the next several months, I'll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have, but also how ... to get along."

Chances could come at a Group of 20 leaders' gathering in September in New Delhi and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November in San Francisco that the United States is hosting.

Since the cancellation of Blinken's trip in February, there have been some high-level engagements. CIA chief William Burns traveled to China in May , while China's commerce minister traveled to the U.S. And Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Yi in Vienna in May.

But those have been punctuated by bursts of angry rhetoric from both sides over the Taiwan Strait, their broader intentions in the Indo-Pacific, China's refusal to condemn Russia for its war against Ukraine, and U.S. allegations from Washington that Beijing is attempting to boost its worldwide surveillance capabilities, including in Cuba .

And, earlier this month, China's defense minister rebuffed a request from U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for a meeting on the sidelines of a security symposium in Singapore, a sign of continuing discontent.

Austin said Friday he was confident that he and his Chinese counterpart would meet "at some point in time, but we're not there yet."

Underscoring the situation, China rejected a report by a U.S. security firm, that blamed Chinese-linked hackers for attacks on hundreds of public agencies, schools and other targets around the world, as "far-fetched and unprofessional"

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson repeated accusations that Washington carries out hacking attacks and complained the cybersecurity industry rarely reports on them.

That followed a similar retort earlier in the week when China said Qin had in a phone call with Blinken urged the United States to respect "China's core concerns" such as the issue of Taiwan's self-rule, and "stop interfering in China's internal affairs, and stop harming China's sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition."

Meanwhile, the national security advisers of the United States, Japan and the Philippines held their first joint talks Friday and agreed to strengthen their defense cooperation, in part to counter China's growing influence and ambitions.

This coincides with the Biden administration inking an agreement with Australia and Britain to provide the first with nuclear-powered submarines, with China moving rapidly to expand its diplomatic presence, especially in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific island nations, where it has opened or has plans to open at least five new embassies over the next year.

The agreement is part of an 18-month-old nuclear partnership given the acronym AUKUS — for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Speaking before Blinken's departure, two U.S. officials downplayed hopes for major progress and stressed that the trip was intended to restore a sense of calm and normalcy to high-level contacts.

"We're coming to Beijing with a realistic, confident approach and a sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible," said Daniel Kritenbrink, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia and the Pacific.

Kurt Campbell, the top Asia expert at the National Security Council, said "intense competition requires intense diplomacy if we're going to manage tensions. That is the only way to clear up misperceptions, to signal, to communicate, and to work together where and when our interests align."

Prior to his departure Friday, Blinken also said that he will personally raise the cases of Americans who have been wrongfully detained in China.

There are three U.S. citizens considered by the State Department to be wrongfully detained there, including 48-year-old Mark Swidan, a Texas businessman, who is on death row and has been imprisoned since 2012 on charges of narcotics trafficking which he has denied.

The other two men are 67-year-old David Lin, a pastor who has been imprisoned in China since 2006, and 60-year-old Kai Li, who has been imprisoned since 2016.

• Antony Blinken

More from CBS News

Man falls to his death while hiking with wife along Oregon coast

Biden signs foreign aid bill, clearing the way for new weapons for Ukraine

House speaker calls for Columbia president's resignation amid protests

Pelosi says Netanyahu "should resign"

• Election 2024
• Entertainment
• Newsletters
• Photography
• Personal Finance
• AP Investigations
• AP Buyline Personal Finance
• AP Buyline Shopping
• Press Releases
• Israel-Hamas War
• Russia-Ukraine War
• Global elections
• Asia Pacific
• Latin America
• Middle East
• Election Results
• Delegate Tracker
• AP & Elections
• Auto Racing
• 2024 Paris Olympic Games
• Movie reviews
• Book reviews
• Personal finance
• Financial Markets
• Business Highlights
• Financial wellness
• Artificial Intelligence
• Social Media

As Blinken heads to China, these are the major divides he will try to bridge

FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China on June 19, 2023. Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week. It comes as U.S.-China ties are at a critical point over numerous global disputes. (Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, second left, is pictured at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023. Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week. It comes as U.S.-China ties are at a critical point over numerous global disputes. (Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Beijing, June 18, 2023. Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week. It comes as U.S.-China ties are at a critical point over numerous global disputes. Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week. It comes as U.S.-China ties are at a critical point over numerous global disputes. (Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, June 19, 2023. Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week. It comes as U.S.-China ties are at a critical point over numerous global disputes. (Leah Millis/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken holds a news conference in the Beijing American Center at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, Monday, June 19, 2023. The United States and China have pledged to stabilize their badly deteriorated ties during a critical visit to Beijing by Blinken, who met with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week. It comes as U.S.-China ties are at a critical point over numerous global disputes. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

• Copy Link copied

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken is starting three days of talks with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing this week with U.S.-China ties at a critical point over numerous global disputes.

The mere fact that Blinken is making the trip — shortly after a conversation between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a similar visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and a call between the U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs — might be seen by some as encouraging, but ties between Washington and Beijing are tense and the rifts are growing wider.

From Russia and Ukraine to Israel, Iran and the broader Middle East as well as Indo-Pacific and trade issues, the U.S. and China are on a series of collision courses that have sparked fears about military and strategic security as well as international economic stability.

Blinken “will raise clearly and candidly our concerns” during the talks starting Wednesday, a senior State Department official said.

Here’s a look at some of the key issues Blinken is expected to bring up on the trip:

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR

The Biden administration has grown increasingly concerned in recent months about Chinese support for Russia’s defense industrial base , which U.S. officials say is allowing Moscow to overcome Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine and resupply its military. U.S. officials say this will be a primary topic of conversation during Blinken’s visit.

While the U.S. says it has no evidence China actually is arming Russia, officials say other activities are potentially equally problematic.

“If China purports on the one hand to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it can’t on the other hand be fueling what is the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” Blinken said last week.

China says it has the right to trade with Russia and accuses the U.S. of fanning the flames by arming and funding Ukraine. “It is extremely hypocritical and irresponsible for the U.S. to introduce a large-scale aid bill for Ukraine while making groundless accusations against normal economic and trade exchanges between China and Russia,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday in Beijing.

A senior State Department official said Friday that “through Chinese support, Russia has largely reconstituted its defense industrial base, which has an impact not just on the battlefield in Ukraine but poses a larger threat, we believe, to broader European security.”

MIDDLE EAST TENSIONS

U.S. officials, from Biden on down, have repeatedly appealed to China to use any leverage it may have with Iran to prevent Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza from spiraling into a wider regional conflict.

While China appears to have been generally receptive to such calls — particularly because it depends heavily on oil imports from Iran and other Mideast nations — tensions have steadily increased since the beginning of the Gaza war in October and more recent direct strikes and counterstrikes between Israel and Iran.

Blinken has pushed for China to take a more active stance in pressing Iran not to escalate tensions in the Middle East . He has spoken to his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, several times over the past six months and urged China to tell Iran to restrain the proxy groups it has supported in the region, including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria.

Blinken told Wang in a phone call this month that “escalation is not in anyone’s interest and that countries should urge Iran not to escalate,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said of their last conversation.

The senior State Department official said Blinken would reiterate the U.S. interest in China using “whatever channels or influence it has to try to convey the need for restraint to all parties, including Iran.”

TAIWAN AND THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

In the Indo-Pacific region, China and the United States are the major players, but Beijing has become increasingly aggressive in recent years toward Taiwan and its smaller Southeast Asian neighbors with which it has significant territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea .

The U.S. has strongly condemned Chinese military exercises threatening Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province and has vowed to reunify with the mainland by force if necessary. Successive U.S. administrations have steadily boosted military support and sales for Taipei, much to Chinese anger.

The senior State Department official said Blinken would “underscore, both in private and public, America’s abiding interest in maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We think that is vitally important for the region and the world.”

In the South China Sea, the U.S. and others have become increasingly concerned by provocative Chinese actions in and around disputed areas.

In particular, the U.S. has voiced objections to what it says are Chinese attempts to thwart legitimate maritime activities by others in the sea, notably the Philippines and Vietnam. That was a major topic of concern this month when Biden held a three-way summit with the prime minister of Japan and the president of the Philippines.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND SYNTHETIC OPIOIDS

The U.S. and China are at deep odds over human rights in China’s western Xinjiang region, Tibet and Hong Kong as well as the fate of several American citizens that the State Department says have been “wrongfully detained” by Chinese authorities.

China has repeatedly rejected the American criticism as improper interference in its internal affairs. Yet, Blinken will again raise these issues, according to the senior State Department official, who added that China’s self-described efforts to rein in the export of materials that traffickers use to make fentanyl have yet to yield significant results.

The two sides agreed last year to set up a working group to look into ways to combat the surge of production of fentanyl precursors in China and their export abroad. U.S. officials say they believe they had made some limited progress on cracking down on the illicit industry but many producers had found ways to get around new restrictions.

Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed.

Antony Blinken Explains Why He Canceled Trip To China Amid Spy Balloon Incident

Breaking News Reporter, HuffPost

Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained his decision to postpone a scheduled trip to China earlier this month while the Chinese spy balloon was flying over U.S. airspace.

In an interview with NPR broadcast on Tuesday , Blinken said that he had planned to visit Beijing to maintain channels of communication with the Chinese government, but the presence of the spy balloon meant the timing wasn’t right.

“We believe that diplomacy and engagement are important,” Blinken said. “In fact, this only underscores the importance of having lines of communication. That was in part the purpose of the trip I had intended to take, but in the context of the surveillance balloon, those weren’t the right conditions to go forward with the trip.”

Blinken abruptly decided to not travel to China hours ahead of his scheduled departure as the U.S. considered how to respond to the spy balloon.

The White House has maintained that the trip was postponed, not canceled altogether. The trip was agreed upon by Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping when the two met in Indonesia during the G20 summit in November, according to The Associated Press .

The U.S. military ended up shooting down the balloon on Feb. 4, after it drifted over the Atlantic Ocean.

Blinken told NPR’s Leila Fadel the spy balloon was an “irresponsible act” on the part of China. Beijing claimed the balloon was used for meteorological research and accidentally drifted off course.

Blinken added his visit would be rescheduled once “China demonstrates that it wants to engage in a responsible manner.”

John Kirby, communications coordinator for the National Security Council, on Tuesday said three flying objects that later were shut down by the U.S. appear to not be linked to China.

“The intelligence community is considering as a leading explanation that these could just be balloons tied to some commercial or benign purpose,” Kirby told reporters .

Kirby on Monday emphasized that Blinken’s cancellation of the trip didn’t mean the two countries weren’t talking.

“We still have an embassy there,” Kirby said. “We still have an ability through Secretary Blinken’s good offices to communicate with senior Chinese leaders.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s Chinese counterpart, however, declined the Pentagon chief’s request for a phone call .

Meanwhile, key former officials from Donald Trump ’s administration are set to receive briefings on the three spy balloons that flew over the U.S. during Trump’s time in office.

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton told Politico he will “ask for all the details, top to bottom” during the briefing set to take place Wednesday afternoon at the Liberty Crossing Intelligence Campus in Virginia.

Support HuffPost

Our 2024 coverage needs you, your loyalty means the world to us.

At HuffPost, we believe that everyone needs high-quality journalism, but we understand that not everyone can afford to pay for expensive news subscriptions. That is why we are committed to providing deeply reported, carefully fact-checked news that is freely accessible to everyone.

Whether you come to HuffPost for updates on the 2024 presidential race, hard-hitting investigations into critical issues facing our country today, or trending stories that make you laugh, we appreciate you. The truth is, news costs money to produce, and we are proud that we have never put our stories behind an expensive paywall.

Would you join us to help keep our stories free for all? Your contribution of as little as $2 will go a long way.

Can't afford to donate? Support HuffPost by creating a free account and log in while you read.

As Americans head to the polls in 2024, the very future of our country is at stake. At HuffPost, we believe that a free press is critical to creating well-informed voters. That's why our journalism is free for everyone, even though other newsrooms retreat behind expensive paywalls.

Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.

Contribute as little as $2 to keep our news free for all.

Dear HuffPost Reader

Thank you for your past contribution to HuffPost. We are sincerely grateful for readers like you who help us ensure that we can keep our journalism free for everyone.

The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. Would you consider becoming a regular HuffPost contributor?

The stakes are high this year, and our 2024 coverage could use continued support. If circumstances have changed since you last contributed, we hope you’ll consider contributing to HuffPost once more.

Already contributed? Log in to hide these messages.

Popular in the Community

From our partner, more in world news.

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Antony Blinken in China: all eyes on whether US secretary of state will meet Xi Jinping

A meeting is yet to be confirmed, a day after ‘candid’ talks with China’s foreign minister, who said ties were at their lowest point since diplomatic relations began

Antony Blinken was greeted by China’s top diplomat on Monday, and will perhaps meet its president, on the final day of a rare visit aimed at trying to resurrect relations between Washington and Beijing from historic lows.

Neither Blinken nor Wang Yi made any comment to reporters as they greeted each other and sat for their discussion during what is the first visit by a US secretary of state to China in five years.

However, all eyes will be on whether Blinken also meets President Xi Jinping , an engagement that Reuters sources said was expected but yet to be confirmed by the state department.

On Sunday, Blinken held talks lasting more than seven-and-a-half hours – an hour more than expected – with Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang. The US state department called the talks – which were held at an ornate state villa, and included a banquet dinner – “candid, substantive and constructive” although they did not appear to make concrete progress on disputes that include Taiwan, trade, human rights and fentanyl .

Both expressed a desire to stabilise ties despite what one US official called their “profound” differences, and agreed that Qin would visit Washington to continue the conversation, though no date was announced.

However, behind closed doors, Qin told Blinken that relations between the US and China “are at the lowest point since the establishment of diplomatic relations”, according to state-run broadcaster CCTV.

“This does not conform to the fundamental interests of the two peoples, nor does it meet the common expectations of the international community,” Qin was reported as saying during the talks at the ancient Diaoyutai gardens.

State-run Chinese tabloid Global Times said in an editorial on Monday: “Despite very low expectations for any breakthroughs made during Blinken’s visit to China, there is still hope that both sides can maintain their ‘bottom line’ in the relationship.”

Beijing has made clear that Taiwan is the most important issue, and a potentially dangerous one. “Qin Gang pointed out that the Taiwan issue is the core of China’s … interests, the most important issue in Sino-US relations, and the most prominent risk,” Chinese state media quoted Qin as having told Blinken.

In turn, Blinken stressed “the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation”, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

US officials and analysts expect Blinken’s visit will pave the way for more bilateral meetings in coming months, including possible trips by Treasury secretary Janet Yellen and commerce secretary Gina Raimondo.

It could also set the stage for talks between Xi and president Joe Biden at multilateral summits later in the year.

Sino-US ties have deteriorated across the board in recent years, raising concern the two might one day clash militarily over the self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own.

Especially alarming for China’s neighbours has been Beijing’s reluctance to engage in regular military-to-military talks with Washington.

Before the talks, US officials saw little chance of any breakthrough on the many disputes between the world’s largest economies, which also include US efforts to hold back China’s semiconductor industry and to stem the flow of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl and its precursor chemicals from China.

Blinken was originally scheduled to visit in February but abruptly scrapped his plans as the US protested against – and later shot down – what it said was a Chinese spy balloon flying over its soil .

Biden played down the balloon episode as Blinken was heading to China, saying: “I don’t think the leadership knew where it was and knew what was in it and knew what was going on.”

“I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,” Biden told reporters on Saturday.

Biden said he hoped to again meet Xi after their lengthy and strikingly cordial meeting in November on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Bali, where they agreed on Blinken’s visit.

“I’m hoping that, over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along,” Biden said.

The two leaders are likely to attend the next G20 summit, in September in New Delhi, and Xi is invited to travel to San Francisco in November when the US hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

• Antony Blinken
• US foreign policy
• Asia Pacific

Most viewed

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

The state department isn't expecting diplomatic breakthroughs on Blinken's China trip

Michele Kelemen

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to China this weekend for some high stakes diplomacy. But Washington says it doesn't expect major breakthroughs from this trip.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to China this weekend for some high-stakes diplomacy. Relations between the two largest economies have been sinking for years, and the Biden administration says it wants to put a stop to that. But State Department officials aren't raising expectations for any major breakthrough, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.

MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The last time Secretary Blinken planned to go to Beijing was in February, but a Chinese spy balloon was slowly drifting across the United States. The secretary called off his trip, and the balloon was shot down. It was a dramatic reminder of the rising tensions between the U.S. and China. The top U.S. diplomat for the region, Daniel Kritenbrink, has been working hard behind the scenes to get that visit back on track.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

DANIEL KRITENBRINK: And in the course of those discussions, both sides have indicated a shared interest in making sure that we have communication channels open and that we do everything possible to reduce the risk of miscalculation.

KELEMEN: In a call with reporters, he downplayed the possibility of any real breakthrough in Secretary Blinken's meetings in Beijing on Sunday and Monday. Kritenbrink says it would be wise not to expect any real deliverables.

KRITENBRINK: I do think we need to be realistic. We're not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation in the way that we deal with one another. We're coming to Beijing with a realistic, confident approach and a sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible.

KELEMEN: Secretary Blinken spoke about that with his Chinese counterpart, Qing Gang, before both sides announced the dates of the trip. China says its top diplomat offered a pointed message to Blinken. Here's how the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, described the call. He was speaking through an interpreter.

WANG WENBIN: (Through interpreter) He stressed that the U.S. need to show respect, stop meddling in China's internal affairs and stop harming China's sovereignty, security and development interests in the name of competition.

KELEMEN: China says Blinken must also respect the country's core concerns. That includes Taiwan. Biden administration officials say Blinken will be talking about all the U.S. concerns, including human rights and threats against Taiwan. A top White House official on Asia, Kurt Campbell, spoke to reporters today while traveling from India to Japan. It's part of his effort to build up alliances to help in this competition with China.

KURT CAMPBELL: As the competition continues, the PRC will take provocative steps from the Taiwan Strait to Cuba, and we will push back.

KELEMEN: The Wall Street Journal recently reported on a Chinese listening post in Cuba. The Biden administration says that base dates back to the Trump era and insists that the U.S. is doing more now to counter China's global military and intelligence efforts.

Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

• Environment
• Road to Net Zero
• Art & Design
• Film & TV
• Music & On-stage
• Pop Culture
• Fashion & Beauty
• Home & Garden
• Things to do
• Combat Sports
• Horse Racing
• Beyond the Headlines
• Trending Middle East
• Business Extra
• Culture Bites
• Year of Elections
• Pocketful of Dirhams
• Books of My Life
• Iraq: 20 Years On

US Secretary of State wraps up major trip to China with Xi Jinping meeting

Antony blinken has ‘substantive’ and ‘constructive’ discussion with chinese president.

Antony Blinken is the highest-ranking US official to visit Beijing since 2018. AFP

The US Secretary of State secured a last-minute meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday, capping a two-day diplomatic push aimed at stabilising relations between the two world powers.

Washington and Beijing have been at odds under President Joe Biden, with tension mounting in recent months over Taiwan, security concerns and military close calls.

In February, the US shot down an alleged high-altitude Chinese surveillance balloon after it flew over North America.

And earlier this month, a Chinese warship sailed within 150 metres of an American destroyer and a Canadian frigate in the Taiwan Strait.

Antony Blinken, who had already had to postpone his visit to China over the surveillance balloon incident, is the highest-ranking US official to visit Beijing since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in 2018.

In addition to his 35-minute discussion with Mr Xi, the Secretary of State met Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, as well as Foreign Minister Qin Gang

Before setting off for Beijing, Washington had sought to temper expectations of the trip, with US officials telling reporters the visit was not about deliverables.

China is Washington's top trading partner as well as its main competitor on the international stage, with Beijing expanding its influence from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East and beyond.

But Mr Blinken's meeting with the Chinese President shows how seriously both sides are taking the relationship.

“We are clear-eyed about the challenges posed by the PRC [People's Republic of China],” Mr Blinken told reporters.

“The United States will advance a vision for the future that we share with so many others: a free, open, stable and prosperous world with countries upholding and updating the rules-based order that has for years safeguarded peace and security globally.”

Mr Xi said progress had been made during the Secretary of State’s trip.

Mr Blinken said he had “candid” and “substantive” discussions while in China, and also reiterated Washington’s “One China” policy with regard to Taiwan, stressing that the US does “not support Taiwan independence”.

But while the meetings may have helped to stabilise the relationship, Mr Blinken appears to have been unable to convince China to improve communications between their respective militaries.

“The fact that there was not a willingness at least at the moment to resume the military-to-military channels is again an indication that they are not willing to accept competition and commit to managing that competition,” said Bonnie Glaser, director of the Asia programme at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Ms Glaser said China views diplomacy through a completely different lens than the US and has been reluctant to publicly accept that the two countries are competitors.

“They're really dug in on their own interpretation of what the relationship should be,” Ms Glaser told The National.

“I think Xi Jinping does not want to accept that this is a very conflictual and contentious relationship because that would probably create more challenges for him domestically.”

While no major diplomatic breakthroughs were achieved on the trip, both sides agreed to keep communication channels open and entertained the possibility of future diplomatic visits – something Ms Glaser called “important”.

View from DC

The inside scoop from The National’s Washington bureau

In China, Blinken urges fair treatment of American companies

• Medium Text

SUPPORT FOR RUSSIA

Sign up here.

Reporting by Simon Lewis and Beijing newsroom; Writing by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Miral Fahmy

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. New Tab , opens new tab

World Chevron

A Ukrainian court ordered Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky to be taken into custody on Friday pending a corruption investigation focused on allegations he took part in an illegal acquisition of state-owned land worth some $7 million.

clock This article was published more than  1 year ago

Blinken postpones China trip as suspected spy balloon detected over U.S.

Hours before the secretary of state was scheduled to depart for beijing, the diplomatic visit was called off.

President Biden postponed his top diplomat’s first official trip to China on Friday in response to the Pentagon’s discovery of an alleged Chinese spy balloon flying over the continental United States, said a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

The decision came just hours before Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to depart for Beijing — in a dramatic indication of how seriously the Biden administration takes the incident and wants to avoid appearing soft on China.

Blinken told China’s foreign affairs chief Wang Yi that the presence of a “surveillance balloon” in U.S. airspace amounted to an “irresponsible act” and a “clear violation of U.S. sovereignty,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price on Friday.

He said the incident “undermined” the purpose of the trip, and that “in light of this ongoing issue, it would not be appropriate to visit Beijing at this time.” Price said Blinken would be prepared to visit Beijing “as soon as conditions allow.”

When pressed why the administration called off the trip, given the view of U.S. defense officials that the Chinese balloon was not able to collect significant intelligence, a State Department official said the incident “would have significantly narrowed the agenda” of the trip.

Beijing on Friday acknowledged the balloon originated in China, but said it was a meteorological aircraft that was blown off course — claims that have been rejected by Blinken and the Pentagon.

U.S. officials have said they do not think the balloon was able to gather information that couldn’t be acquired in other ways, namely by spy satellites. However the postponement of Blinken’s high-level trip following the incident highlights how tense relations are between Washington and Beijing at a time when both sides are trying to erect safeguards to stave off fresh conflict.

Danny Russel, a vice president at the Asia Society and a former U.S. diplomat, said the Biden administration’s decision to postpone the trip was “recognition that the incident would hijack the agenda, crowd out the strategic issues, and dominate the media coverage of the visit.”

“The incident has soured the atmosphere and hardened positions and there’s no guarantee the two sides can successfully resurrect the 'Bali’ momentum,” he said, referring to the meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November. “On the other hand, both sides are looking for ways to stabilize the relationship and reduce risk. So ideally, this incident can serve as a teachable moment.”

The discovery of the surveillance balloon also raises pressure on Biden, who has been sensitive to Republican criticisms that he is insufficiently tough on China, although on the issue of canceling the trip, Republicans were divided on the matter.

Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.) called on the administration to cancel the trip while House Speaker Kevin McCarthy demanded a “Gang of Eight” intelligence briefing from the president on the balloon. The “gang” is a panel of lawmakers including the top Republican and Democratic leadership in the House and Senate, plus the heads of each chamber’s intelligence committee.

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee encouraged Blinken to use the trip to send a tough message to China regarding the suspected spy balloon. But U.S. officials appeared to be concerned about the optics of the visit in the wake of the incursion, even though experts said the incident, even if it were an act of espionage, was not remarkable.

“All countries, especially competitors like the United States and China, spy on each other. It’s a fact of international relations, and has been forever,” said Jacob Stokes, an expert at the Center for a New American Security and a former Obama administration official.

The Pentagon on Thursday said in a surprise announcement that the balloon was drifting over high-altitude U.S. airspace, and is being monitored but is not currently considered a threat to people on the ground. U.S. officials briefly considered shooting the balloon down but decided against it due to the threat of falling debris to people on the ground.

The airship first crossed into U.S. sovereign territory over the Aleutian Islands late last week, then drifted over mainland Alaska, down through Canada and crossed into the continental United States in the vicinity of northern Idaho and Montana, according to a U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The official said it stopped to loiter near sensitive sites, such as Malmstrom Air Force Base, undercutting Chinese assertions that the balloon is a wayward device. Military officials track airborne materials in such circumstances, called “derelict objects,” and have a checklist to determine if something like a weather balloon is adrift.

The Chinese balloon is not that, the official said. “When it stops drifting, it’s a different conversation,” the official added. The balloon is about the size of two to three buses, the person added, with sensors and other equipment carried underneath. It is unclear if the balloon is following a predetermined path to loiter in certain places or is controlled directly by Chinese operators.

“It is maneuverable, and I’ll just leave it at that,” Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters Friday, adding that it’s expected to continue its path over the United States “for a few days.” Within the past day, the airship moved over Montana, which is home to sensitive military installations including missile silos .

Some top Republicans, including former president Donald Trump, on Friday called for the Biden administration to shoot the balloon down, though Ryder said the Pentagon has chosen to monitor it instead, as it doesn’t pose an immediate risk.

“It is possible the Defense Department is looking for an opportunity to recover part of the balloon intact, which could potentially yield valuable intelligence about China’s long-range reconnaissance systems,” said Craig Singleton, a senior China fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

“They serve as very low-cost platforms that can be quickly deployed to collect intelligence and augment existing surveillance networks. Some can even reportedly detect hypersonic weapons,” he said.

China’s Foreign Ministry called for “cool-heads” over the incident, while state media overnight criticized U.S. media for “hyping” the incident in relation to the Blinken trip.

“It is a civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes. Affected by the Westerlies and with limited self-steering capability, the airship deviated far from its planned course,” read the Foreign Ministry’s statement.

The incident has also caused friction between China and Canada, which the balloon passed over on its route to the United States. A spokesperson from the North American Aerospace Defense Command confirmed Friday that Canada is tracking another high-altitude balloon that is also believed to be Chinese.

Chinese surveillance balloons have been sighted “multiple times over the last five years” in the Pacific, including near Hawaii, said one U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity. In February of last year, for instance, one such balloon was spotted in the vicinity of Hawaii, the official said. “What they’re doing is not new,” the official said.

Taiwanese media raised similar alarms last year when a Chinese military unit launched groups of balloons over the island during a period of heightened security after the outbreak of war in Ukraine last February. Taiwanese defense officials at the time said they would step up patrols but that the craft posed no immediate security threat.

No decision has been made yet on when a possible rescheduled trip by Blinken could occur.

“There’s all this hopeful happy talk outside of government about the U.S. and China restoring guardrails,” said Christopher B. Johnstone, a former Biden White House aide on East Asia issues and a former CIA officer. “But there’s clearly deep pessimism inside the government about how far they can get if they’re willing to pull down this visit over a balloon,”

Laurence Pfeiffer, a former CIA chief of staff, said the administration would be rewarding China’s bad behavior if Blinken went ahead with the trip. “The Republicans would eat them alive.”

There is precedent for Beijing claiming that military projects are civilian research, including a 2021 hypersonic missile test , which the Foreign Ministry said at the time was a routine test of reusable space vehicles.

“Presenting it this way is probably intended to reduce scope for it to be an issue when Xi meets Blinken, but it is unlikely to be deemed credible by Blinken,” said Professor Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London.

Ellen Nakashima, Dan Lamothe, Alex Horton and Meaghan Tobin contributed to this report.

More on the flying objects shot down over U.S., Canada

The latest: U.S. fighter jets have shot four objects out of the sky over North America this month. The first object, a balloon shot down off the South Carolina coast , was Chinese. Biden said Thursday the three other objects did not so far appear to have connections to foreign surveillance programs.

The first balloon: The first object was linked by the U.S. intelligence community to a vast surveillance program run by the People’s Liberation Army. Here’s a timeline of the balloon’s journey across the United States and photos of the recovery .

The response from China: China’s Foreign Ministry said the U.S. has sent at least 10 unsanctioned balloons into Chinese airspace since last year. China accused the United States of an “overreaction” and reiterated claims that the airship was a civilian vessel that drifted off course.

Why use a spy balloon? Spy balloons “offer a few advantages over the use of satellites or drones,” James Rogers, an academic at Cornell, tells us. The Defense Department told Congress that similar surveillance balloons had been spotted in U.S. airspace before, and a top U.S. general said past incursions by Chinese balloons went undetected by the Pentagon .

• Share full article

Advertisement

Blinken to Visit China in Early 2023 After Biden and Xi’s Meeting

The trip is aimed at keeping the lines of communication open and having frank exchanges about important issues at senior levels in order to avoid conflict.

By Edward Wong

• Nov. 14, 2022

WASHINGTON — Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, plans to visit China early next year to follow up on the meeting between President Biden and China’s leader, Xi Jinping , in Bali, Indonesia, a State Department official in Washington said on Monday.

The trip to China by Mr. Blinken, his first as secretary of state, would have the same broad aims as the meeting in Bali: to keep the lines of communication open and to have frank exchanges about important issues at senior levels in order to avoid conflict. American and Chinese officials plan to work out details of the trip over the coming weeks.

Mr. Biden said at his news conference in Bali on Monday night that Mr. Blinken would make a trip sometime soon. Mr. Blinken sat to Mr. Biden’s right as the American delegation met in a hotel with Mr. Xi and Chinese officials. The U.S. ambassador to China, R. Nicholas Burns, was also on the American side of the table.

Mr. Blinken has met with Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, several times in various places outside of China. They spoke in late September on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Taiwan was a central topic of the discussions.

Mr. Blinken and Mr. Wang first met in their current roles in March 2021 in Anchorage, Alaska, where Mr. Wang and Yang Jiechi, China’s top Communist Party official for foreign policy, sharply criticized Mr. Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, on U.S. policy on China.

“We believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image, and to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world,” Mr. Yang told Mr. Blinken and Mr. Sullivan in that meeting.

In internal discussions, Mr. Blinken has been supportive of the Biden administration’s actions on China, including the sweeping export controls on semiconductor technology announced last month.

Mr. Blinken has rallied allies and partners to denounce China’s actions on Taiwan, including the military exercises and missile tests that Beijing carried out after Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to the island in August. And Mr. Blinken has not changed the official State Department designation of the Chinese government’s actions against ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang as “genocide,” a designation that Mr. Blinken’s predecessor, Mike Pompeo, made in January 2021, right before the end of the Trump administration.

At the same time, Mr. Blinken is a proponent of Mr. Biden’s goal of keeping open channels of communication with China in order to avoid a rapid deterioration of the relationship. The two countries are the world’s largest economies and have extensive trade ties.

U.S. officials said after the meeting in Bali that the two countries would resume diplomatic talks that Beijing had frozen after Ms. Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. That includes talks on climate change and global environmental policy.

But analysts say Mr. Blinken and other administration officials will continue to enact tough policies on China even as they carry on diplomacy.

“To use Theodore Roosevelt’s phrase, Biden’s approach to China can be described as ‘speak softly and carry a big stick,’” said Yuen Yuen Ang, a political scientist at the University of Michigan. “Unlike Trump, Biden does not send wild tweets or insult China, but he is determined to counter China’s rise, and he has been steadily doing so by rallying allies and cutting off China’s access to critical technology.”

Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent who has reported for The Times for more than 22 years, based in New York, Baghdad, Beijing and Washington. He received a Livingston Award and was on a team of Pulitzer Prize finalists for Iraq War coverage. He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard and a visiting professor of journalism at Princeton and U.C. Berkeley. More about Edward Wong