US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) meets Chinese President Xi Jinping on the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, June 19, 2023.
Leah Millis | afp | Getty’s paintings
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday as a top US diplomat ends his rare two-day visit to Beijing amid simmering US-China tensions.
Addressing Blinken, Xi said the 2 superpowers “had sincere and in-depth discussions” and stressed that state-to-state interactions should “at all times be based on mutual respect and sincerity,” in a video uploaded by Chinese state TV outlet CCTV.
“I hope that through this visit, Mr. Secretary, you’ll make a more positive contribution to the stabilization of Sino-American relations,” the Chinese leader said.
“Either side have also made progress and reached agreement on some specific issues. That is superb,” he added, without revealing further details.
Blinken’s 35-minute meeting with Xi on the Diaoyutai state-run guesthouse ended at 5:09 p.m. local time (5:09 a.m. EST), the State Department said.
Soon after, Xi said the world needed a “generally stable” relationship between China and the US, adding that whether the 2 countries could find the proper path to an agreement would “reflect the longer term of humanity,” Chinese state media Xinhua reported.
Blinken’s trip makes him the highest US official to go to China since Biden became US president and the primary US secretary of state to make the trip in nearly five years. The meeting with Xi was not confirmed prior to Blinken’s arrival in Beijing, and can likely be seen as a positive sign that the talks are going well.
Blinken said that US President Joe Biden asked him to travel to China because he “believes that the US and China have a responsibility to administer our relationship responsibly.”
“The US is committed to this,” Blinken said. “It’s in the interest of the US, in the interest of China, and in the interest of the world.”
“I appreciate this chance to debate the best way forward with you,” Blinken Xi said.
Blinken’s original travel plans for February were disrupted by news of an alleged Chinese spy balloon flying over US airspace. The US eventually shot down the flying object, and tensions between the world’s two largest economies have remained high ever since.
Blinken’s visit to China is anticipated to pave the best way for Biden’s November meeting with Xi. The 2 world leaders last met in person in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G20 Summit late last 12 months.
“Open channels of communication”
Earlier, Blinken met with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Monday after “honest, substantive and constructive talks” with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday.
The meeting was expected to handle a variety of issues, including the importance of open lines of communication, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Blinken “underlined the importance of responsibly managing competition between the US and the PRC through open channels of communication to make sure competition doesn’t result in conflict,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in an announcement.
The secretary also “reiterated that the US will proceed to make use of diplomacy to lift problems with concern and defend the interests and values of the American people.”
Wang stressed that Blinken’s visit got here at a critical time in China-US relations, in an announcement issued by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs translated by Google. He said each side must make a choice from cooperation and conflict, adding that the difficulties in relations between the countries are rooted in the “misconception of China by the US, which results in the unsuitable policy towards China.”
Wang also called on Washington to desert the so-called “China threat theory”, to lift sanctions against Beijing, and to stop suppressing China’s technological development.
The State Department didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment on Wang’s characterization of the character of the US-China difficulties.
China’s Xi held talks with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates last week, saying he hoped the friendship between the peoples of China and the US would proceed.
“I even have often said that the inspiration of Sino-American relations lies in people. We at all times place our hopes in the American people and hope that the friendship between the 2 nations will proceed,” Xi said on Friday, in line with CCTV.
Xi also told Gates that he was the “first American friend” he had met in Beijing this 12 months. Many American business leaders have made visits to China in recent months, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Apple CEO Tim Cook.
— CNBC Ewelina Cheng contributed to this report.