US plays down chance of breakthrough from Blinken China visit after tense call
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The United States on Wednesday played down expectations of any breakthrough from the first trip by a U.S. Secretary of State to China in five years, after a tense call with China’s foreign minister ahead Antony Blinken’s visit to Beijing next week.
Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang urged the United States to stop meddling in its affairs and harming its security in a call with Blinken on Wednesday, and said it should respect China’s core concerns to arrest declining relations between the superpowers, China’s foreign ministry said.Having postponed a February trip after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace, Blinken is set to become the highest ranking U.S. government official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.U.S. officials said Blinken would push to establish open communication channels to ensure competition with the Chinese does not spiral into conflict.”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 call.
