US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing

Beijing – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday at the end of a high-stakes two-day visit to Beijing aimed at easing escalating tensions between the two countries.

The meeting in the Great Hall of the People was expected and seen as key to the trip’s success, but neither side confirmed it would happen until a State Department official announced it just an hour earlier.

Disdain for the Chinese leader would have been a major setback for efforts to restore and maintain contacts at higher levels. In previous meetings between Blinken and top Chinese officials, both sides expressed a desire to talk but showed no inclination to bend to hardline positions.

Blinken is the highest-ranking US official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office, and the first secretary of state to make the trip in five years. His visit is expected to usher in a new round of visits by senior US and Chinese officials, possibly including a meeting between Xi and Biden in the coming months.

The meeting with Xi came after Blinken held talks with other senior Chinese officials during which both sides expressed a desire to talk but showed no inclination to bend to the hardline positions that have heightened tensions.

Earlier Monday, Blinken met with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for three hours, according to a US official.

China’s foreign ministry wrote in a statement that Blinken’s visit “coincides with a critical juncture in Sino-US relations, and it is necessary to choose between dialogue, confrontation, cooperation or conflict,” blaming the “misperception of the US side.” China, resulting in incorrect policies towards China” due to the current “low point” in relations.

It said the United States had a responsibility to stop the “escalating deterioration of China-US relations to push it to a healthy and stable track” and that Wang “demanded the United States to stop amplifying the ‘China threat theory’, lift illegal unilateral sanctions against China, and abandon suppression of technological development Chinese, refrain from arbitrary interference in China’s internal affairs.”

Despite Blinken’s presence in China, he and other US officials have played down the prospects of any significant breakthroughs on the most troubling issues facing the planet’s two largest economies.

Instead, these officials stressed the importance of the two countries establishing and maintaining better lines of communication.

The State Department said Blinken “stressed the importance of responsible management of the competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China through open channels of communication to ensure that competition does not degenerate into conflict.”

In the first round of talks on Sunday, Blinken met for about six hours with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang, after which the two countries said they agreed to continue high-level discussions. However, there was no indication that any of the most complex issues between them were any closer to being resolved.

Both sides said Chen accepted an invitation from Blinken to visit Washington, but Beijing made it clear that “China-US relations are at the lowest level since their establishment.” American officials broadly share this sentiment.

Blinken’s visit comes after his initial plans to travel to China in February were delayed after a Chinese observation balloon was shot down over the United States.

Before leaving for Beijing, Blinken said, Biden and Xi pledged to improve communications “specifically so that we can make sure that we communicate as clearly as possible to avoid potential misunderstandings and miscommunications.”

Biden said over the weekend that he hopes to be able to meet with Xi in the coming months to address the many differences that divide them.

That long list includes controversies ranging from trade to Taiwan, human rights situations in China and Hong Kong to Chinese military influence in the South China Sea and Russia’s war in Ukraine.

In his Sunday meetings, Blinken also pressed the Chinese to release detained US citizens and take steps to limit the production and export of fentanyl precursors that are fueling the US opioid crisis.

Xi gave a hint of a possible willingness to reduce tensions on Friday, telling a meeting with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that the United States and China could cooperate for the “benefit of our two countries.”

Since canceling Blinken’s trip in February, there have been some high-profile engagements. CIA chief William Burns traveled to China in May, while China’s commerce minister traveled to the US, and Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with top Chinese foreign policy adviser Wang Yi in Vienna in May.

But it was punctuated by outbursts 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 US allegations from Washington that Beijing is trying to bolster the conflict. Surveillance capabilities around the world, including in Cuba.

And earlier this month, China’s defense minister turned down a request from US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to hold a meeting on the sidelines of a security seminar in Singapore, in a sign of continued discontent.