US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in China tomorrow. Days before his departure, Blinken received a stern rebuke from his Chinese host, who blamed Washington for the recent spike in tensions between the two nations. The already fraught relationship worsened after Blinken scrapped an earlier trip in February over a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over the US.
Blinken's trip is a high-stakes one, an attempt from the US to improve ties between the two countries. In a phone call with Blinken, China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang urged the US to “show respect” for Beijing’s core concerns and stop interfering in its internal affairs, CNN reported.
When Blinken spoke to Gang, he stressed “The importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage" the relationship, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said. Relations between the two superpowers have long been under strain over trade, the human rights of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, Taiwan and many other issues.
Daniel Kritenbrink, the top State Department official for East Asia, said that the United States was “realistic" about what Blinken could achieve, AFP reported. “We’re not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation," Kritenbrink told said.
Instead, Blinken is coming with a “sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible." reportedly, Chinese state media has stayed largely muted in recent days for a visit by a senior American official in five years. China, after the spy balloon incident, wants to avoid another potential embarrassment.
In recent months, the US signed a trade deal with Taiwan, slapped sanctions on Chinese companies and pushed allies to restrict semiconductor tech experts to China. These actions have caused Beijing to question Washington's sincerity.
According to experts, the US' control on technology export, especially curbs on the supply of advanced semiconductors and chipmaking equipment to China and Taiwan are the issues at the top of Beijing's agenda.
“China has always viewed and managed China-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation put forward by President Xi Jinping," Gang told AFP.
Arms sales with Taiwan, visits by senior US lawmakers and other steps taken by Washington to help Taipei defend itself, have caused China to accuse the US of stirring trouble, experts observe.
In 2018, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited China. Post this, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in Bali in November 2022, where they agreed to try to prevent tensions from soaring out of control. On June 11, the US accused China of having an intelligence unit in Cuba for years.