Antony Blinken meets Xi Jinping: Will it help ease US-China tensions?

US secretary of state Antony Blinken on Monday met China’s Xi Jinping. Blinken’s two-day trip to China, the highest-level visit by a US official in nearly five years, is aimed at easing tensions between the two nations. But will the meeting between America’s top diplomat and the Chinese leader do so? Let’s take a closer look: ‘No mean feat’ A Blinken-Xi meeting had been expected, but neither side had confirmed it would happen until just an hour before the talks, which are seen as key to the success of the trip. A snub by the Chinese leader would have been a major setback to the effort restore and maintain communications at senior levels. Scott Mulhauser, who served as chief of staff at the US Embassy in Beijing, told USA Today, “It’s pretty clear that, no matter the administration or the moment, the China relationship takes work.” “That work involves balancing where we need to be tough and looking for ways to find solutions to broader global issues,” he added.

“That is no easy feat. But if anyone can do it, Tony Blinken can do it.”

Blinken is the highest-level 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. Kurt Campbell, Deputy Assistant to the President and Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs, told BBC this is a good time to talk because it reduces chance of conflict. “We can’t let the disagreements that might divide us stand in the way of moving forward on the global priorities that require us all to work together,” Campell added. The encounter with Xi comes on the second and second and final day of Blinken’s critical meetings with senior Chinese officials. The two sides have thus far expressed willingness to talk but have showed little inclination to bend on hardened positions that have sent tensions soaring. Daniel J Kritenbrink, the State Department’s senior East Asia diplomat, told BBC not to expect any change in the way the countries look at each other. Kritenbrink added that both sides could ‘build on something’ if the meet results in further contact between US and Chinese officials. Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told USA Today Blinken’s visit to Beijing is “in many respects, purely performative.” “Its outcome will bear very little significance on the downward trajectory of Sino-US relations,” Singleton added. The BBC noted that cooperation with China could be tough for Biden given that anti-Beijing fervour in Washington will only increase ahead of the impending 2024 presidential election. [caption id=“attachment_12694072” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Chinese president Xi Jinping. Reuters.[/caption] “A satisfactory outcome from this trip for both sides might be simply the opening of communication channels that prevent an incident leading to military conflict,” the piece concluded. Blinken met earlier Monday with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi for about three hours, according to a US official. Neither Blinken nor Wang made any comment to reporters as they greeted each other and sat for their discussion. But Bonnie Glaser, the managing director of the German Marshall Fund’s Indo-Pacific Program, told Al Jazeera Blinken’s trip has gone better than expected. “Given the deep mistrust in the relationship, so far the visit has gone better than I expected. There was zero chance of a breakthrough. We can only hope for baby steps toward a new modus vivendi in the relationship.” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a statement that Blinken’s visit “coincides with a critical juncture in China-US relations, and it is necessary to make a choice between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict,” and blamed the “US side’s erroneous perception of China, leading to incorrect policies towards China” for the current “low point” in relations. It said the US had a responsibility to halt “the spiraling decline of China-US relations to push it back to a healthy and stable track” and that Wang had “demanded that the US stop hyping up the ‘China threat theory’, lift illegal unilateral sanctions against China, abandon suppression of China’s technological development, and refrain from arbitrary interference in China’s internal affairs.” Despite Blinken’s presence in China, he and other US officials had played down the prospects for any significant breakthroughs on the most vexing issues facing the planet’s two largest economies. Instead, these officials have emphasized the importance of the two countries establishing and maintaining better lines of communication. The State Department said Blinken “underscored the importance of responsibly managing the competition between the United States and the PRC through open channels of communication to ensure competition does not veer into conflict.” In the first round of talks on Sunday, Blinken met for nearly six hours with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang after which both countries said they had agreed to continue high-level discussions. However, there was no sign that any of the most fractious issues between them were closer to resolution. The two sides both said Qin had accepted an invitation from Blinken to visit Washington but Beijing made clear that “the China-US relationship is at the lowest point since its establishment.” That sentiment is widely shared by US officials. Blinken is the highest-level American official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office and his two-day trip comes after his initial plans to travel to China were postponed in February after the shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon over the US. 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 before leaving for Beijing. His talks could pave the way for a meeting in the coming months between Biden and Xi. Biden said Saturday that he hoped to be able to meet with Xi in the coming months to take up the plethora of differences that divide them. That long list incudes disagreements ranging from trade to Taiwan, human rights conditions in China and Hong Kong to Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea and Russia’s war in Ukraine. [caption id=“attachment_12755162” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Before the talks, U.S. officials saw little chance of any breakthrough on the long list of disputes between the world’s two largest economies, which range from trade and US efforts to hold back China’s semiconductor industry to the status of self-governed Taiwan and Beijing’s human rights record[/caption] In his meetings on Sunday, Blinken also pressed the Chinese to release detained American citizens and to take steps to curb the production and export of fentanyl precursors that are fueling the opioid crisis in the United States. Xi offered a hint of a possible willingness to reduce tensions Friday, saying in a meeting with Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates that the United States and China can cooperate to “benefit our two countries.” 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 US And Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Wang 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 US 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 US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for a meeting on the sidelines of a security symposium in Singapore, a sign of continuing discontent. Neither side expects breakthroughs during Blinken’s two-day visit, with the world’s two largest economies at odds on an array of issues from trade to technology to regional security. But the two countries have increasingly voiced an interest in seeking greater stability and see a narrow window before elections next year both in the United States and Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy which Beijing has not ruled out seizing by force. In a sign of the fragility of the effort, Blinken had been due to visit four months ago, the fruit of a cordial summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in Bali in November. But Blinken abruptly postponed the trip after the United States said it detected a Chinese spy balloon over US soil, leading to furious calls for a response by hardliners in Washington. Speaking in the US capital before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to “responsibly manage our relationship” by finding ways to avoid “miscalculations” between the countries. “Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict,” he said. Keeping allies close Blinken was speaking alongside Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who said that the region wanted the United States both to stay as a power and to find ways to coexist with a rising China. Blinken’s “trip is essential, but not sufficient”, Balakrishnan said. “There are fundamental differences in outlook, in values. And it takes time for mutual respect and strategic trust to be built in.” As part of the Biden administration’s focus on keeping allies close, Blinken spoke by telephone with his counterparts from both Japan and South Korea during his 20-hour trans-Pacific journey. Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, travelled separately to Tokyo for separate three-way meetings involving Japan and both South Korea and the Philippines. In recent months the United States has reached deals on troop deployments in southern Japan and the northern Philippines, both strategically close to Taiwan. Beijing carried out major military drills around Taiwan in August, seen as practice for an invasion, after Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited. And in April, China launched three days of war games after Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen visited the United States and met the current speaker, Kevin McCarthy. China’s ‘core concerns’ Ahead of Blinken’s visit, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that the United States needed to “respect China’s core concerns” and work together with Beijing. “The US needs to give up the illusion of dealing with China ‘from a position of strength’. China and the US must develop relations on the basis of mutual respect and equality, respect their difference in history, culture, social system and development path,” he said, a nod to frequent US criticism of China’s rights record. Blinken is the first top US diplomat to visit Beijing since a brief stop in 2018 by his predecessor Mike Pompeo, who later championed all-out confrontation with China in the final years of Donald Trump’s presidency. The Biden administration has kept in place Trump’s hard line in practice if not tone and has gone further in areas, including working to ban exports to China of high-end semiconductors that have military uses. But unlike Trump, who is running again for president, the Biden administration has said it is willing to work with China on narrow areas of cooperation such as climate – as Beijing sweats in record mid-June temperatures. Danny Russel, who was the top diplomat on East Asia during Barack Obama’s second term, said that each side had priorities – with China seeking to forestall additional US restrictions on technology or support for Taiwan, and the United States eager to prevent an incident that could spiral into a military confrontation. “Blinken’s brief visit will not bring resolution to any of the big issues in the US-China relationship or even necessarily to the small ones. Neither will it stop either side from continuing with their competitive agendas,” said Russel, now a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “But his visit may well restart badly needed face-to-face dialogue and send a signal that both countries are moving from angry rhetoric at the press podium to sober discussions behind closed doors.” Meanwhile, the national security advisers of the United States, Japan and the Philippines held their first joint talks last week 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. With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .