The differences of opinion remain, but at least they are talking to each other again: After his trip to China, US Secretary of State Blinken made it clear how important the talks were.
In terms of content, China and the USA have hardly come close at all – but at least in terms of atmosphere, they have come closer. This is how US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing can be summed up.
Blinken himself said shortly before his departure from Beijing: “We are under no illusions.” Managing relations between China and the United States is a very demanding matter. There are fundamentally “immensely different opinions” on many issues.
During his visit to the People’s Republic, Blinken spoke to his colleague Qin Gang and the Communist Party’s foreign policy chief, Wang Yi, among others. He also met with Secretary-General Xi Jinping. He hopes Blinken’s visit will lead to stabilization of bilateral ties, Xi said. Observers see the fact that this statement was disseminated in the original language by the state media as a symbolically important gesture of concession by the Chinese head of state and party.
Nevertheless: dealing with Taiwan, China’s striving for power in the South China Sea, trade barriers for US companies in the People’s Republic, the human rights situation in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong – when Blinken listed some of the controversial issues at his press conference in the US embassy in Beijing, that sounded after much conflict.
In his tone, however, the US Secretary of State tried to spread optimism, along the lines of: We haven’t made any progress in terms of content, but at least we’re talking again and we agree that things should stay that way.
More exchanges and more direct flights
What both sides have agreed on, at least according to the US government, is more cultural and university exchanges – and more direct flights between the two countries. Compared to the pre-Corona period, there are still only a fraction of the direct connections between the two largest economies in the world.
No approach to the topic of “crisis hotline”
Blinken also announced that they would resume mutual visits by government officials, which had come to an almost complete standstill in recent years. Despite all the emphasis on the good climate for talks, he had to admit when asked that the direct communication channels between Beijing and Washington, which the US government had recently requested several times, would not initially exist. He once again raised the wish for a “crisis hotline” primarily for the military of the two countries, but achieved nothing concrete. But he wanted to stay on topic.