US Secretary of State Antony Brinken (left) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on June 19, 2023.
Leah Millis | AFP | Getty Images
US President Joe Biden said Secretary of State Anthony Blinken did a “great job” in Beijing.
His comments came after Blinken’s diplomatic mission to China, which was intended to ease strained relations with China.
“We’re on the right track here,” Biden said on Monday.
Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping for 35 minutes in a surprise meeting toward the end of a two-day visit. He will be the highest-level U.S. official to visit China in about five years.
Asked if he felt progress had been made in the Brinken-Xi meeting, the president said: “You don’t need to ask that. You can ask how much progress has been made.”
During his visit, Mr. Blinken also met with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang.
Here are some other takeaways from Mr. Brinken’s visit to China:
progress
Biden wasn’t the only one to feel the progress in the talks.
“Both sides agreed to stick to the common understanding that President Biden and I reached in Bali,” Xi said in a video broadcast by Chinese state media CCTV.
He also said the two sides had “made progress and reached an agreement on some specific issues,” without elaborating further. “This is great.”
Xi called for stable relations with the United States, saying the world needed “overall stability” in relations between the two economic powerhouses.
of U.S. Department of State He said the talks were “candid, substantive and constructive”.
Door to Future Dialogue
Mr. Blinken’s meeting is possible It paves the way for Biden to meet with Xi in November.
“Both sides agreed to continue to involve senior officials in Washington and Beijing to maintain open communication,” the State Department said.
The secretary of state invited Qin to visit the United States, and the two sides agreed to schedule mutual visits at appropriate times, according to a statement.
No date has been announced, but the two sides have agreed to maintain high-level exchanges, the report said. chinese government.
Mark Hannah, a senior fellow at the Eurasia Group Foundation, said the conversation between Hata and Blinken was “generally positive” based on reports from both countries.
“These official accounts omit a lot, but the words both sides have chosen to characterize the meeting capture the mood,” Hannah told CNBC.
competition
Chinese state media “Great power competition is out of step with the times, much less solves America’s own problems and the challenges facing the world,” Xi said.
Bonnie Gussler, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund, said this aspect of Mr. Xi’s speech was “problematic.”
“My view is that unless the Chinese government accepts that competition is now a major feature of U.S.-China relations and requires active and effective management, the bilateral relationship will continue to grow,” Gussler told CNBC. cannot be stabilized,” he said.
The Biden administration is trying to persuade China to accept competition as a pillar of the relationship, and to persuade it that cooperation is essential to managing it and “preventing it from turning into conflict.” Gussler tweeted.
The technology race between the U.S. and China has also intensified in recent months, with the U.S. blocking China’s access to advanced chip technology and China banning major infrastructure providers from buying U.S. tech giant Micron.
according to People’s Daily statementWang called on the United States to abandon the so-called “China threat theory,” lift sanctions against China, and stop suppressing China’s technological development. The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on China’s statement.
Robert Daley, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, conceded that war was unlikely, but said the conflict would continue.
Before meeting with Xi, Daley told CNBC, “Although there is a joint decision and a joint understanding that we should not go to war, the two countries will definitely avoid war and continue to compete on all power indexes around the world. I intend to,” he said. with blinken.
Current situation in Taiwan
Blinken also said he had expressed concern about China’s “provocative actions in the Taiwan Strait and the South and East China Seas.”
But he tried to assure Beijing that he “reiterated the long-standing US one-China policy with respect to Taiwan, and that policy has not changed.”
China sees Taiwan as part of its territory that needs to be reunified with the mainland. Beijing has never renounced the use of force against Taiwan and has made increasingly offensive statements against the island.
“We do not support Taiwan’s independence. We continue to oppose any unilateral change of the status quo by either side. We continue to look forward to the peaceful resolution of differences across the straits,” said Mr. Blinken, referring to the US government. added that it remains committed to the Taiwan Relations Act. It also includes ensuring Taiwan’s ability to defend itself.
“Protecting national unity has always been at the core of China’s core interests,” Wang stressed during his meeting with Blinken on Monday. He added that the United States should “respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and clearly oppose ‘Taiwan independence.'”
tension may still remain
However, geopolitical tensions are likely to remain high.
“Both countries haven’t lowered their threat assessments. They haven’t changed their threat assessments. Our intentions haven’t changed. rice field.
“These dialogues are great, and the more dialogue the better, but so far there’s no indication that either side is really changing their own assessment of the other,” Daily said on CNBC’s “Squawk.” said at Box Asia.
The State Department has revealed Mr. Blinken. Emphasized that the United States will always defend the values of Americanscited China’s “unfair and unmarketable economic practices and recent actions against U.S. companies.”
Xi maintained the position that the United States must respect China and “should not harm China’s legitimate rights and interests.” It will not replace or replace the United States,” he added.
“Neither party can shape the other as it wishes, much less deprive the other of its legitimate right to development,” Xi said.
