Blinken will visit China in February to discuss ‘broad array of issues’, State Department says

Few details revealed for top American diplomat’s trip viewed as potentially paving way for Xi Jinping to attend Apec in San Francisco in November
Biden administration’s continued urging of Beijing to be ‘fully transparent’ in Covid handling will not affect trip, spokesman adds

US-China relations

Mark Magnierin New York

Published: 8:01am, 19 Jan 2023

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China next month, the State Department said on Wednesday, offering no specific dates and few details other than that America’s top diplomat hopes to meet with a variety of officials in Beijing.

Blinken’s trip is seen as part of a ‘step ladder’ of future meetings between senior US and Chinese officials to build a minimum level of confidence in the troubled bilateral relationship, potentially leading to President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the Asia Pacific Economic Summit in San Francisco in November.

As part of this process, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with vice-premier Liu He in Switzerland on Tuesday – the first face-to-face meeting of top economic officials in two years – and pledged to meet soon in China and the US.

“Now that we are in early 2023, I would expect that the secretary will have an opportunity to travel to Beijing next month,” said US State Department spokesman Ned Price.

The administration hoped Blinken would “have an opportunity to meet with several interlocutors to discuss the broad array of issues that form the basis of what is arguably the most consequential bilateral relationship in the world”, Price added.

Analysts are watching closely to see what level of official Beijing makes available during the likely visit as a barometer of China’s willingness to engage further and otherwise erect “guardrails” to prevent the relationship from deteriorating further.

But many doubt this is a fundamental rapprochement but rather a tactical easing given the many economic, military and social challenges facing China’s leadership.

For much of 2022, ties between the world’s two major powers were deeply strained, undercut by harsh rhetoric, competition over semiconductors, and the August visit to Taiwan by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to visit in a quarter century, which resulted in an aggressive Chinese military response.

The stand-off eased, however, after Xi and US President Joe Biden met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia in November.

Price on Friday said the Biden administration continued to urge China to be “fully transparent” in handling its recent outbreak of Covid-19, including any evidence of new variants and details on the extent of the problem. But he added that the World Health Organization was best positioned to assess China’s level of cooperation.

Xi Jinping expresses concern about Covid’s spread into China’s countryside

The travel requirement put in place in late December stipulating that travellers from China obtain Covid tests before entering the US reflected these concerns, Price noted.

“Those measures are based on both the prevalence of Covid in the PRC, but also what we were seeing at the time, or namely what we were not seeing at the time, the lack of transparent data distribution from the PRC, principally to the WHO, including the genomic sequencing,” he said, using the initials for China’s official name.

China has faced global criticism for not being more forthcoming on the extent of the coronavirus’ spread and the validity of the country’s statistics related to its sudden decision to abandon its stringent zero-Covid policy in early December.

In the month leading up to January 8, China reported just 37 deaths from local cases, according to figures released on the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention website. Yet earlier this week, it revised its figures and said it recorded 59,938 deaths between December 8 and January 12.

In recent days, Chinese foreign ministry officials have pushed back on the criticism with a series of briefings in New York, Washington, Beijing and elsewhere.

They have argued that Beijing’s policy turnaround was neither sudden nor unplanned, that China was not opposed to importing foreign drugs, and that the US had not been transparent about the risk of exporting its own variants.

Price on Wednesday said the issue of Covid transparency had not coloured any plans for Blinken’s trip.

“Secretary Blinken fully expects to travel to Beijing next month. That is something that we are still planning for on a daily basis,” he said. “We’re working closely with our counterparts in the PRC to see to it that this trip is constructive.”

Price added that fentanyl – the leading cause of death among Americans between the ages of 18 and 49 – remained a key global issue. While China was no longer a major source of fentanyl flowing into the US, he said, PRC-origin precursor chemicals were still being used in illicit fentanyl production.

“Though its past action has helped to counter illicit synthetic drugs, we continue to urge the PRC to take additional meaningful concrete action to curb the diversion of precursor chemicals and equipment used by criminals to manufacture fentanyl and other synthetic drugs,” Price said.

Washington is committed to working with China in areas where the two economic giants could do so together constructively, he added. “This is very much one of those areas,” Price said.

Blinken discusses US-China ties with incoming Chinese FM Qin Gang

Separately, when asked if the Biden administration was going to tone down its rhetoric toward China now that relations seemed more stable, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she did not expect such an adjustment.

“We’re very clear on our approach with China. That hasn’t changed,” she said. “We’re looking for a competition, right? That’s how we see our relationship with China. And, you know, that hasn’t changed. It’s not going to change.”

Jean-Pierre declined to comment on China’s historically weak fourth-quarter GDP figures or population decline announced this week.

“We of course monitor all global developments and continue to stay in touch with our partners, allies and key market sectors, including China,” she said, adding mistakenly that Yellen was now in China.

“Have you have seen Secretary Yellen is in China and she’s going to be meeting with China’s vice-president on Wednesday, which is today? And so again, she’s there currently right now in China.”