CNN
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Beijing for a high-stakes visit intended to steer relations between the United States and China back on course after months of simmering tensions between the two countries.
Officials from both governments signaled low expectations for the visit, with a senior State Department official telling reporters earlier this week that he did not expect “a long list of can be given.”
Instead, US officials framed the trip as an effort to maintain normal channels of communication with China to avoid conflict between the two world powers.
“What we’re trying to do with this trip is to continue what President (Joe) Biden and President Xi (Jinping) agreed to in Bali at the end of last year, which is to establish a continuous, regular line of communication. at The senior levels of our governments precisely to ensure that we communicate as clearly as possible to avoid, as much as possible, misunderstandings and miscommunications, “said Blinken on Friday before his departure at a news conference with Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.
Blinken’s main goal in China is to re-establish channels of communication, particularly direct military-to-military communication, between Washington and Beijing, according to a senior Department of Defense official. State.
The Biden administration’s relationship with Beijing is one of the most complicated and consequential, and one that has seen months of strain, including two military-related incidents in recent weeks.
Blinken’s trip, announced by Biden and Xi after their meeting last year, was originally scheduled to take place in February and was seen as an important follow-on engagement. However, it was postponed after a suspected Chinese spy balloon was discovered in transit to the US, which Blinken said at the time “created conditions detrimental to the purpose of the trip.”
However, Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said on Wednesday that the US and China have come “to the shared conclusion that now is the right time to engage at this level, ” but “we are not going to Beijing with the intention of having some kind of improvement or change in the way we interact with each other.”
“I think the fact that China agreed to this meeting shows that Beijing feels quite confident about its own position,” Patricia Kim, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, said in a media briefing on Friday.
“Both sides have made comments about the fact that this trip, this visit will not fundamentally change US-China relations or resolve many disputes between the two countries, and I think there is this desire not to set expectations too high or seem too eager to engage with the other side. I don’t think either side wants to see that if they accept or agree with the others’ actions,” he said.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Biden acknowledged “legitimate differences” with China but maintained that he was willing to discuss “areas where we can work together.”
Blinken said that in his meetings with senior Chinese officials, he intended to raise “our genuine concerns on various issues.” Those issues include the fentanyl crisis, Taiwan and cross-Strait issues, the war in Ukraine, and China’s detention of American citizens, including Kai Li, Mark Swidan and David Lin.
In the fentanyl crisis, the senior State Department official said that Blinken’s specific focus is to prevent the flow of chemicals mainly from China to laboratories in South America, where fentanyl is made.
Blinken also said on Friday that he intended “to explore the potential for cooperation on transnational challenges – global economic stability, bad synthetic drugs, climate, global health – where the interests our countries intersect and the rest of the world expects us to work together.”
His visit comes on the heels of a flurry of meetings between American and Chinese officials in recent weeks.
In May, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, in Vienna, followed by talks between the two countries’ trade officials in Washington. China’s new ambassador also arrived in the US, vowing to improve relations during “serious difficulties and challenges.”
“China and the US have always had a high level of diplomatic contact, which all shows that the two sides are gradually returning to the right path,” said Shen Dingli, a foreign policy expert at China in Shanghai.
However, contacts between the countries’ top military officials remain frozen, and it remains to be seen whether Blinken’s visit could lead to a breakthrough on that front. China rejected an offer for a formal meeting between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who is under US sanctions, in Singapore last month, although the both spoke for a while.
The US is also due to host the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November, which Xi, the Chinese leader, will attend regardless of the state of US-China relations, Shen said.
But whether Xi’s trip will include a formal visit to the US — and at what level — depends on “what both sides can do beforehand,” Shen said.
Biden told reporters Saturday that he believed Blinken’s trip to China would ease tensions and said he hoped to meet with Xi again “in the next few months.”
Shen said there are two things China cares about the most: “managing differences on the Taiwan issue and preventing supply chains from decoupling, especially for advanced chips.”
“The hope is that Blinken’s visit will improve relations in form and content. But the hope will not come true, and relations may deteriorate after the visit,” he added. “We are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.”
Blinken could not predict whether his visit would pave the way for continued high-level engagement between the US and China.
“As to what comes next, let’s see how the visit goes,” the top US diplomat said on Friday, referring to comments from his Singaporean counterpart. “This is an important but, in a sense, insufficient step because there is a lot of work that needs to be done.”
This story has been updated with additional information.