Blinken will be latest senior US official to visit China in bid to keep ties on equal footing | WDHN

WASHINGTON (AP) Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit China next week as Washington and Beijing try to maintain balanced ties despite major differences on issues ranging from the path to peace in the Middle East to supply of synthetic opioids. increased fears about global stability.

The rivals are at odds on many fronts, including Russia's war in Ukraine, Taiwan and the South China Sea, North Korea, Hong Kong, human rights and the detention of American citizens. The United States and China are also fighting over trade issues, with President Joe Biden last week announcing new tariffs on Chinese steel imports.

The State Department said Saturday that Blinken, for his second visit to China in less than a year, would travel to Shanghai and Beijing starting Wednesday for three days of meetings with senior Chinese officials, including the Secretary of State. Foreign Affairs Wang Yi. Talks between Blinken and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected, although neither side will confirm that such a meeting will take place shortly before then.

The department said in a statement that Blinken would discuss a range of bilateral, regional and global issues, including the Middle East, the war in Ukraine, the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.

He will also discuss “progress in resuming cooperation in counternarcotics, military-to-military communications, artificial intelligence and strengthening people-to-people ties” and will reaffirm how important it is to the United States and China to “responsibly manage competition, even in areas where our two countries disagree,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

The trip follows a phone call this month between Biden and Xi in which they pledged to keep high-level contacts open, something they agreed to last year at a face-to-face summit. face to face in California. Since the call, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has visited China and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has spoken by telephone with his Chinese counterpart. Meetings at lower levels also took place.

Despite these encounters, relationships are difficult. The United States has recently become more vocal in its calls for China to stop supporting Russia's military-industrial sector, which Washington says has allowed Moscow to increase its weapons production to support the war against Ukraine.

We see China sharing machine tools, semiconductors and other dual-use goods that have helped Russia rebuild the defense industrial base that sanctions and export controls had done so much to degrade, Blinken said Friday. However, if China claims to want good relations with Europe and other countries, it cannot, on the other hand, fuel what constitutes the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War .

Blinken has also pushed China to take a more active stance in pressuring Iran not to escalate tensions in the Middle East. He has spoken with his Chinese counterpart several times since the war between Israel and Hamas began six months ago, as he sought China's help in getting Iran to restrict proxy groups which he supported, armed and financed in the region.

This topic has taken on new urgency since the direct attacks by Iran and Israel on each other's soil last week.

Taiwan and the South China Sea will also be among Blinken's priorities.

The United States has strongly condemned Chinese military exercises threatening Taiwan, which Beijing considers a renegade province, and vowed to reunify it with the mainland by force if necessary. Successive U.S. administrations have gradually increased their military support and sales to Taipei, much to the dismay of Chinese officials.

In the South China Sea, the United States and others are increasingly concerned about China's provocative actions in and around disputed areas. In particular, the United States has expressed objections to what it sees as Chinese attempts to thwart the legitimate activities of other countries in the waterway, including the Philippines and Vietnam.

This was a major concern earlier this month when Biden held a three-way summit with the prime minister of Japan and the president of the Philippines.