ALBAWABA - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Beijing to meet with high-profile Chinese officials in hopes of working towards ameliorating the rocky ties between China and the U.S.
The long-overdue visit comes after a number of delays, most recently being the visit in February after the discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon in U.S. airspace.
Days before embarking on his trip, Blinken spoke with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang, where the latter emphasized China's refusal to the U.S. having a hand in their internal affairs, and urged the US to “show respect” toward Beijing's concerns regarding the U.S. role in the region.
In a pre-trip briefing on Wednesday, U.S. officials said they have no expectation the trip will yield a breakthrough in how the U.S. and China deal with each other. Blinken said his trip was "an important, but in a sense insufficient step, because there's a lot of work to be done," Reuters reported.
It is yet not confirmed if Blinken will be meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Low expectations for a good after-effect of Blinken's visit
“We’re not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation in the way that we deal with one another,” Daniel Kritenbrink, the State Department’s top diplomat for East Asia, told reporters in a briefing Wednesday.
Last year has put Chinese-U.S. ties to the test, as the U.S. slapped China with a bundle of sanctions, pushing semiconductor tech experts to limit their dealing with Chinese companies.
Additionally, it has been extremely difficult to find a middle ground between the United States' opposition to what is taking place in Ukraine on the one hand and repairing the shaky relations between the two countries on the other due to China's steadfast support of Russia's activities in Ukraine following the Russian invasion in February 2022.
