BEIJING (AFP) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken began talks in China yesterday on the highest-level trip by a United States (US) official in nearly five years as the two powers looked to notch down the temperature in an escalating rivalry.
Both sides have voiced guarded hope of improving communication and preventing conflict, with the world’s two largest economies at odds on an array of issues from trade to technology and regional security.
Blinken and his aides opened the two-day visit by meeting Foreign Minister Qin Gang at an ornately decorated state villa in Beijing’s ancient Diaoyutai gardens, where the Chinese hosts will later throw a banquet dinner.
Qin and Blinken walked along a red carpet and shook hands next to a pair of national flags standing in front of a painting of craggy mountains and wispy clouds.
Blinken earlier said he would seek to avoid “miscalculations” and to “responsibly manage” relations with the country identified by US policymakers across party lines as the greatest challenge to Washington’s global primacy.
He was originally scheduled to visit in February but abruptly scrapped his plans as the US protested – and later shot down – what it said was a Chinese spy balloon flying over its soil.
US President Joe Biden played down the balloon episode as Blinken was heading to China, saying: “I don’t think the leadership knew where it was and knew what was in it and knew what was going on.”
“I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,” Biden told reporters on Saturday.
Biden said he hoped to again meet President Xi Jinping after their lengthy and strikingly cordial meeting in November on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali.
“I’m hoping that, over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along,” Biden said.
The two leaders are likely to attend the next G20 summit, in September in New Delhi, and Xi is invited to travel to San Francisco in November when the US hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
