Xi says China, US ‘made progress’ in Blinken visit

President Xi Jinping said China had “made progress” with the United States on Monday as he hosted Secretary of State Antony Blinken for talks in Beijing.

Blinken’s visit is the highest-level trip by a US official to China in nearly five years with ties severely strained between the world’s two largest economies.

Xi and Blinken’s ‘agreement’

Speaking following his meeting with Xi, the top US diplomat said he agreed with China’s leadership on the need to “stabilise” relations but that he was “clear-eyed” on vast disagreements between the two countries.

“Direct engagement and sustained communication at senior levels is the best way to responsibly manage differences and ensure that competition does not veer into conflict,” Blinken told reporters.

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“I heard the same from my Chinese counterparts. We both agree on the need to stabilise our relationship,” he added.

Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades, met Blinken at the capital’s Great Hall of the People, Chinese state media and US officials said.

“The Chinese side has made our position clear and the two sides have agreed to follow through the common understandings President Biden and I had reached in Bali,” Xi told the top US diplomat.

“Two sides have also made progress and reached agreement on some specific issues,” he added, without elaborating.

“I hope that Secretary Blinken, through this visit, can make positive contributions to stabilising China-US relations.”

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The meeting, which lasted just over half an hour, came after Blinken held more than 10 hours of talks over two days with other top officials.

At the ornate Diaoyutai State Guesthouse earlier Monday, Blinken and China’s foreign policy supremo Wang Yi offered polite smiles before talks with their aides, who unlike their bosses wore masks in line with lingering Covid-19 protocols.

Away from the cameras, Wang told Blinken that his trip “comes at a critical juncture in China-US relations”, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

“It is necessary to make a choice between dialogue and confrontation, cooperation or conflict,” he said.

“We must reverse the downward spiral of China-US relations, push for a return to a healthy and stable track, and work together to find a correct way for China and the United States to get along,” Wang added.

He also issued a warning on Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy claimed by Beijing.

In the past year, China has launched live-fire military drills twice near the island in anger over meetings between top US lawmakers and Taiwanese leaders.

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“On this issue, China has no room to compromise or concede,” Wang told Blinken, according to CCTV.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller called the discussion with Wang “candid and productive”.

‘Quarrelling lovers’

US officials have voiced fears that China in the coming years will try to seize Taiwan and insist that Washington’s sales of weapons to the island are meant only to preserve the status quo.

Tensions between China and the United States have soared in recent years over a host of issues including trade, technology and Taiwan, with both President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump calling Beijing the most serious threat to long-term US global primacy.

US officials have said they hope Blinken’s visit will bring more stability, if not breakthroughs, between Washington and Beijing.

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On the streets of the Chinese capital, Sun Yi, 26, said she hoped Blinken’s trip would improve the relationship and that she wanted to visit the United States.

“I think the two countries right now are like quarrelling lovers. Both sides have their own personalities and interests and are not willing to compromise,” she said.

Hopes for new summit

Xi met Biden in November in Bali on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit, raising cautious hopes for a thaw.

Blinken abruptly shelved his trip, which was agreed in Bali, in February after the United States said it detected — and later shot down — a Chinese spy balloon hovering over the US mainland.

Biden on Saturday said he did not believe the Chinese leadership was aware of the balloon — suggesting a disconnect with the military, which has been less eager to restore contacts with the United States.

Biden has kept Trump’s hard line on China and in some areas gone further, including banning exports of high-end semiconductors to the rising power.

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But Biden has also voiced hope for limited cooperation in areas such as climate and for a new in-person meeting with Xi.

The next opportunity is likely in September when Biden and Xi are both expected in New Delhi for the latest G20 summit.

Xi has also been invited to San Francisco in November as the United States leads the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.