US climate envoy John Kerry arrives in China as rival nations restart global warming talks
- ‘In-depth’ talks with Chinese officials will start on Monday and cover cooperation in addressing climate change, state broadcaster CCTV says
- John Kerry is third senior US official to visit China within weeks, after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken
State broadcaster CCTV said Kerry’s “in-depth” talks with Chinese officials would start on Monday and cover cooperation in addressing climate change.
Kerry is the third senior official from the Biden administration to visit China in recent weeks, following trips by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He visited China twice in 2021.
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Climate talks between the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters ground largely to halt last year in the fallout over then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August.
However, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US leader Joe Biden gave the green light for Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua to meet in November – on the sidelines of UN COP27 climate talks in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
But tensions only eased three months later, when both nations decided to resume dialogue.
Analysts said Kerry’s visit would be significant both for renewing climate talks and for moving beyond the political impasse.
But no breakthroughs are likely, they said, with Beijing and Washington expected to continue to bicker over whether climate change should be viewed as a “critical stand-alone issue”, as Kerry has suggested, separate from other bilateral disagreements.
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“[China] should expand and deepen … joint scientific research on global issues such as climate change, energy security, biosecurity and outer space utilisation,” Xi told the ruling Communist Party’s central leadership, or Politburo, in February.
The new round of high-level interactions heralded by Blinken and Yellen’s visits offered a “valuable window of opportunity” to improve US-China ties, Chinese representatives told a meeting of former government officials and industrial and business leaders from either side in Beijing earlier this week.
On Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce confirmed that China was open to a visit by US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.
“China will continue to work on resolving mutual concerns and promoting constructive and pragmatic cooperation through communication,” spokeswoman Shu Jueting said.
Both Beijing and Washington have mentioned the need to step up communication as they explore ways to prevent strained relations from worsening further.
