Top Chinese, US diplomats talk ahead of Beijing visit

The highest-level talks in a recent flurry of diplomatic activity between the countries.

On the blower: Antony Blinken and Qin Gang. Pictures: AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang held a telephone call on Wednesday, the highest-level talks in a recent flurry of diplomatic activity between the countries.

Tensions have risen sharply between the world’s two largest economies in recent years, especially over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims and has not ruled out seizing by force.

Mr Blinken is due in Beijing on Sunday for talks aimed at calming nerves, after a previous planned visit was abruptly cancelled in February.

But in their call, which took place on Wednesday Beijing time, Mr Qin warned that relations between the two countries had faced “new difficulties and challenges” since the beginning of the year.

“It’s clear who is responsible,” Mr Qin said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry readout of a phone call between the two high-ranking diplomats.

“China has always viewed and managed China-US relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win co-operation put forward by President Xi Jinping,” he added.

In contrast, Mr Blinken said that he and Mr Qin had talked about “open channels of communication”.

“Spoke tonight with PRC State Councillor and Foreign Minister Qin Gang by phone,” Mr Blinken said on Twitter. “Discussed ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication as well as bilateral and global issues.”

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Mr Blinken had stressed “the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the US-PRC relationship to avoid miscalculation and conflict” with Mr Qin. Mr Blinken also “made it clear the US would continue to use diplomatic engagements to raise areas of concern as well as areas of potential co-operation”, Mr Miller said.

He is expected to arrive in Beijing on Sunday, the first trip by a top US diplomat to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in October 2018, US officials said on condition of anonymity.

US President Joe Biden and Mr Xi met in Bali in November and agreed to try to prevent the high tensions from soaring out of control, including by sending Mr Blinken to Beijing.

But Mr Blinken abruptly cancelled a trip scheduled in early February after the US said it detected – and later shot down – a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US mainland, drawing fury from US politicians and denials by Beijing.

The two sides have more recently looked again to keep tensions in check, including with an extensive closed-door meeting between Mr Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Vienna last month. And Mr Biden has sought limited areas for co-operation with China, such as climate change, in contrast with the more fully adversarial position adopted at the end of the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump.

AFP