US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with China’s top foreign policy official in Beijing, as a highly-anticipated two-day mission to stabilize strained ties between the world’s largest economies showed positive signs.
Wang Yi told the top US diplomat during a three-hour meeting that went 30 minutes over time on Monday morning that his visit had come at a “critical” juncture in US-China ties, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.
“It’s necessary to make a choice between dialog and confrontation, cooperation and conflict,” Wang said, according to the statement. He also urged the US to stop “hyping the China threat” and suppressing his nation’s tech development.
Their talks follow Blinken’s meeting with Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday, which both sides described as “candid” and lasted 7 1/2 hours — much longer than planned, officials said.
The broadly encouraging tone emerging from Blinken’s rare visit to China has raised expectations that the US official will sit down with President Xi Jinping later Monday. That exchange has been held up as a benchmark of success for the US trip, especially after the Chinese leader met American billionaire Bill Gates in Beijing last week.
The most senior US official to visit China in five years, Blinken is making his trip at a tumultuous time, with the two sides sparring over everything from human rights and technology to trade and weapons sales to Taiwan.
Qin said on Sunday that Taiwan is “the core of the core interests” of China and “the most prominent risk” in China-US ties. Wang added that there could be “no compromise” over the island, which Beijing considers a breakaway territory it must reclaim by force if necessary.
Blinken’s previous attempt to visit China in February was scrapped when the US revealed an alleged Chinese spy balloon was floating over American territory — an incident that led China to accuse the US of “hysteria.”
Chinese state media didn’t feature Blinken’s rescheduled visit prominently on Monday, with Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily giving his meeting with Qin a corner slot on page three. The state-run Global Times’ English language edition gave more prominence to Premier Li Qiang’s concurrent trip to Europe, to shore up ties with Germany and France.
Popular posts on China’s Twitter-like Weibo also questioned whether foreign media had used close-up shots of Blinken descending from his plane to avoid showing a muted reception on the tarmac, and criticized Western journalists for tweeting about Beijing’s smog when photos in Chinese state media of the US officials arriving showed bright blue skies.
Blinken’s talks with the Chinese foreign minister weren’t enough to lift the mood in early trading Monday, after limited details of potential future stimulus plans were released in the wake of Friday’s State Council meeting, disappointing markets.
Stock gauges fell in mainland China and Hong Kong, with the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dropping 1.4% — set for its biggest daily decline this month — after it posted its best week since January on policy and stimulus optimism.
Blinken’s talks with the Chinese foreign minister weren’t enough to lift the mood in early trading Monday, after limited details of potential future stimulus plans were released in the wake of Friday’s State Council meeting, disappointing markets.
Stock gauges fell in mainland China and Hong Kong, with the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index dropping 1.4% — set for its biggest daily decline this month — after it posted its best week since January on policy and stimulus optimism.