US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with Chinese President Xi Jinping as he wrapped up a two-day visit to Beijing aimed at easing soaring US-China tensions.
Blinken is the first US Secretary of State to visit Beijing in five years.
In footage of the meeting released by state broadcaster CCTV, Xi was heard to say “The two sides have agreed to follow through on the common understandings President Biden and I have reached in Bali”.
In earlier meetings between Blinken and senior Chinese officials, the two sides expressed willingness to talk but showed little inclination to bend from hardened positions on disagreements ranging from trade, to Taiwan, to human rights conditions in China and Hong Kong, to Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea, to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Xi said that they had made progress and reached agreements on “some specific issues” without elaborating.
“This is very good,” the Chinese leader said. “I hope that through this visit, Mr Secretary, you will make more positive contributions to stabilizing China-US relation,” Xi added.
The meeting, which took place at Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People, was only publicly announced by the US about an hour before it went ahead. It lasted roughly half an hour.
Blinken: Relationship between China and the US is “consequential”
In a press conference after his meeting with the Chinese leader, Blinken described the relationship between China and the US as “consequential.” He said both nations have an obligation to stabilize that relationship and manage it “responsibly”.
He also said his conversations with both Xi and Chinese top diplomat Wang Yi were “robust” and covered everything from “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” to America’s fentanyl crisis.
Continuing important face to face diplomacy in Beijing, I met today with Central Foreign Affairs Office Director Wang Yi for discussions on a range of bilateral and global issues that affect people at home and around the world. pic.twitter.com/yXYcfU0Go1
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) June 19, 2023
On Taiwan, Blinken reiterated the US’s longstanding One China policy, meaning there is only one Chinese government. But he also warned against China’s “provocative actions” in the Taiwan Strait, which he raised with Xi.
The US remains “deeply concerned” about human rights “violations” by China, specifically in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, Blinken said.
He said China had reiterated that it would not supply lethal aid to Russia to use in Ukraine – but Blinken warned about Chinese private companies’ influence.
To finish, he assured the people and government of China that the US isn’t “seeking to economically contain them”. China’s “broad economic success” also benefits the US, he said.
Blinken’s originally scheduled visit in early February had been agreed on as a follow-up to an amicable face-to-face between US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali in November.
That meeting – the first in-person between the two leaders as presidents – was seen as a pivotal step in restoring certain lines of communication, which Beijing last year severed last year following a visit from then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan.
Both the US and China have played down expectations of a major breakthrough during Blinken’s visit.
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