Sharjah 24 – Reuters: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken goes to Beijing this weekend with expectations low that he will make headway on the long list of disputes between the United States and China. But he and his Chinese counterparts can achieve at least one thing, say analysts - show that the world's most important bilateral relationship is not about to fall off the rails.
Blinken will hold meetings in China on June 18-19 and may meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, sources said. He will be the highest-ranking US government official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, and the first secretary of state in five years.
In a pre-trip briefing on Wednesday, US officials said they have no expectation the trip will yield a breakthrough in how the US and China deal with each other. That followed a tense Tuesday evening phone call in which Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang told Blinken the US should stop meddling in China's affairs.
Blinken told a news conference on Friday the US side would speak candidly in China about "very real concerns" on a range of issues and said the trip was aimed at establishing "open and empowered" communications.
He said he would be looking for areas for cooperation with Beijing, while also raising the issue of US citizens detained in China on charges Washington sees as politically motivated.
"Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict," he said, adding that his visit followed an agreement to step up communications reached between Biden and Xi at a November meeting in Bali.
Blinken said his trip was "an important, but in a sense insufficient step, because there's a lot of work to be done."
On Friday, China's foreign ministry followed up its readout of the tense phone call this week, warning that "vicious competition ... cannot be engaged in" and that Washington "should not fantasise that it is dealing with China from a position of strength."
"This is not so-called responsible competition, but extremely irresponsible hegemonic behavior which will only push China and the US towards confrontation," its spokesperson Wang Wenbin said.
US officials expect Blinken's visit will pave the way for more bilateral meetings in coming months, including possible trips by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. It could also set the stage for meetings between Xi and Biden at multilateral summits later in the year.
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