Blinken begins rare Beijing visit in bid to lower temperature

Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in China on Sunday on the highest-level trip by a US official in nearly five years, with the rival powers looking to lower the temperature after soaring tensions.

Neither side expects breakthroughs during Blinken’s two-day visit, with the world’s two largest economies at odds on an array of issues from trade to technology to regional security.

But the two countries have increasingly voiced an interest in seeking greater stability and see a narrow window before elections next year both in the United States and Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy which Beijing has not ruled out seizing by force.

In a sign of the fragility of the effort, Blinken had been due to visit four months ago, the fruit of a cordial summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in Bali in November.

But Blinken abruptly postponed the trip after the United States said it detected a Chinese spy balloon over US soil, leading to furious calls for a response by hardliners in Washington.

Speaking in the US capital before his departure, Blinken said he would seek to “responsibly manage our relationship” by finding ways to avoid “miscalculations” between the countries.

“Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict,” he said.

– Keeping allies close –

Blinken was speaking alongside Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, who said that the region wanted the United States both to stay as a power and to find ways to coexist with a rising China.

Blinken’s “trip is essential, but not sufficient”, Balakrishnan said.

“There are fundamental differences in outlook, in values. And it takes time for mutual respect and strategic trust to be built in.”

As part of the Biden administration’s focus on keeping allies close, Blinken spoke by telephone with his counterparts from both Japan and South Korea during his 20-hour trans-Pacific journey.

Biden’s national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, travelled separately to Tokyo for separate three-way meetings involving Japan and both South Korea and the Philippines.

In recent months the United States has reached deals on troop deployments in southern Japan and the northern Philippines, both strategically close to Taiwan.

GBDESK//