Antony Blinken met China’s president Xi Jinping on Monday afternoon, according to state media, as the US secretary of state wrapped up a long-delayed visit to Beijing intended to put a floor under strained bilateral ties.
The meeting with Xi came after China’s top diplomat Wang Yi called for Washington and Beijing to reverse a “downward spiral” in relations, which have sunk to their lowest point in decades.
Blinken is the first US secretary of state to visit China since 2018, and analysts consider a meeting with the Chinese president crucial to the success of his visit. In the past, most visiting US secretaries of state have met China’s top leaders.
According to China’s foreign ministry, Wang struck a more constructive tone on ties with the US in a meeting with Blinken before launching into Beijing’s customary blaming of Washington for the acrimony between both sides.
“We must reverse the downward spiral of Sino-US relations . . . and work together to find a correct way for China and the United States to get along in the new era,” the foreign ministry reported Wang as saying.
He added that the “trough in Sino-US relations is rooted in the US’s erroneous perception of China”.
Ties between the countries have foundered with the US concerned about China’s increasing military activity around Taiwan and its refusal to condemn Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Beijing, meanwhile, accuses Washington of imposing export controls on advanced technology and strengthening security arrangements with regional allies to strategically contain China’s ambitions.
Blinken had been scheduled to travel to Beijing early this year, but the trip was postponed after an alleged Chinese spy balloon flew over sensitive military sites in the US before it was shot down in February.
The Biden administration is keen to re-establish diplomacy and open channels of communication with Beijing to reduce the risk of what it calls “misperception and miscalculation” in the relationship.
China, meanwhile, is wrestling with flagging economic growth and falling foreign investment sentiment that has been exacerbated by tensions with the US.
On Sunday, Blinken met Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang for five-and-a-half hours of talks.
Chinese state media outlets were neutral or upbeat on the meeting, saying the sides had agreed to build on understanding reached at the last meeting between US president Joe Biden and Xi during the G20 summit in Indonesia in November.
Blinken and Qin agreed to “effectively manage differences and advance dialogue, exchanges and co-operation”, including increasing the number of people-to-people exchanges and flights between the their countries, Chinese state media said.
The US state department said Blinken “emphasised the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation”.
“The Secretary raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore co-operation on shared transnational issues with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] where our interests align,” the US Department of State said in a statement.
Analysts said the attempts to restart dialogue may be aimed at laying the groundwork for a face-to-face meeting between Xi and Biden in the US in November during a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
Additional reporting by Maiqi Ding in Beijing
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