Saturday, April 20, 2024

Vogon Today

Selected News from the Galaxy

StartMag

Here’s how Blinken will try to mend the US-China rift

10 months ago babelfish

Here's how Blinken will try to mend the US-China rift

Blinken's visit to China could take place as early as next Sunday, in bad weather. All the details in the article by Marco Orioles

According to press reports, the announced visit of US Secretary of State Tony Blinken to China would already take place next Sunday. A taste of the climate awaiting the head of US diplomacy came the day before yesterday with the phone call between Blinken himself and his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang in which the latter asked the Biden administration to "show respect".

Statement from the State Department

The State Department gave the news of the phone call between the heads of the two diplomats with a tweet and a statement from spokesman Matthew Miller:

In the conversation, the statement specifies, Blinken and Qin "addressed a wide range of bilateral and global issues", even if the heart of the conversation was represented by how to "responsibly manage the relationship between the US and the CCP".

In this regard, the Secretary of State underlined "the importance of keeping the lines of communication open (…) to avoid falling back into calculation errors or into conflict", with a clear reference to the closure of these same lines of communication by of China after the sensational incident in February of the spy balloon.

Since Blinken's objective with the phone call and especially with his forthcoming visit to Beijing is to try to soften the other side and restore dialogue at the highest level, Blinken himself in the phone call "clarified that the United States will continue to use diplomatic involvement to identify issues of concern as well as areas for cooperation”.

The Chinese version

As can be seen from the press release issued by the Chinese Foreign Ministry and reported by newspapers such as CNN , Reuters and the South China Morning Post , Blinken's offers were matched by his interlocutor with very harsh statements.

Qin first of all told his colleague that the United States should "show respect" and therefore take Chinese priorities into high consideration, starting with the Taiwan issue. In this sense, the minister urged America "to stop interfering with China's internal affairs" as well as to stop "undermining China's sovereignty and security and development interests".

"Since the beginning of the year," Qin explained to his interlocutor, "Sino-US relations have known new difficulties and challenges, and the responsibility is clear," Qin said with obvious reference both to the tensions between the two marines in the Pacific both to the episode of the spy balloon and to the subsequent sudden cancellation by the US of Blinken's scheduled visit.

"I hope, concluded the minister, "that the US will take action to implement the important consensus that emerged during the meeting between the two heads of state in Bali" on the sidelines of the G20 last November, and that in this way "the stabilization of the China-US relationship”.

Close contacts

As CNN observes, there is an important point of convergence in the two communiqués: both make no reference to Blinken's planned visit to China, which has not yet been officially announced by the State Department and therefore remains in the limbo of the journalistic leaks.

Yet Reuters has just confirmed, referring to a source inside the Biden administration, that the trip will take place and that it will even take place this Sunday.

The US government's willingness to mend relations after the clashes of recent months is evident, bringing them back to the level of a balanced relationship that respects each other's roles.

The signals in this direction are indeed multiplying. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met with CCP foreign affairs appointee Wang Yi last month in Vienna for what has been described as "frank and constructive" talks in the first exchange between senior officials of the two governments after the events of the spy balloon.

Equally significant were the "productive" discussions ten days ago in Beijing between Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Kritenbrink, National Security Council director of China and Taiwan affairs Sarah Beran, US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and , for the Chinese side, the Deputy Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu and the director general of the Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs Yang Tao.

But the big step to take is to convince Xi to accept the call from the White House after for months the latter had firmly opposed the idea of ​​indulging in Joe Biden, who stood by the window scrutinizing a relationship on the verge of falling into any minutes in open confrontation.

The eventual success of Blinken's trip to China will also be measured with this parameter.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/antony-blinken-visita-cina/ on Thu, 15 Jun 2023 06:32:48 +0000.