US diplomacy, and President Joe Biden himself, breathed a sigh of relief on Monday. Xi Jinping, leader of China, granted an audience in Beijing to Antony Blinken.
It was not an easy task, Washington sources said. It almost did not happen, which would have been a severe setback to the attempt to lower the tension between the two global superpowers.
In the agenda for this Monday that was published by the Department of State, there was no allusion to this possible meeting and it was only confirmed three quarters of an hour before the appointment. That Blinken had flown to London for a summit on Ukraine was a bad omen.
The 35-minute talk helped build bridges at a time when allusions to a cold war are being reiterated, with recent frictions in the South China Sea and repeated ones in the Taiwan Strait, and was interpreted as a gesture of good will so that “the competition does not deviate towards a confrontation”.
The host received his guest with a “this is very good” in reference to his visit. He received him at the Great Hall of the People, a huge building located on the west side of Tiananmen Square, where Xi regularly entertains foreign dignitaries.
“The world needs a more stable relationship between us,” Xi said, according to an official note, in which he described the conversation as frank.
“The interaction must follow the common understanding and must be based on mutual respect and sincerity”, he indicated. “I hope that with this visit, Mr. Secretary, you will make a more positive contribution to stabilizing relations,” remarked the Chinese leader.
“Both sides have already made progress and reached agreements on specific issues, and that is very good,” Xi added, without offering further details. “The world needs a stable relationship between us,” he insisted.
The head of US diplomacy responded that Biden asked him to visit Beijing “because he believes that the United States and China have an obligation to maintain a responsible relationship”. For Blinken, his country “is committed to doing this in the interest of my country, China and the world”.
The US administration had “low expectations” for success. “It’s a relationship that was at a point of instability and that needed to be stabilized,” explained Blinken as a priority.
It was about stopping the free-falling spiral of relations between the two nations. Therefore, the objective of Blinken, the first high-ranking official to make this trip in five years – Mike Pompeo went there in 2018 – was to restore a communication channel between the two capitals to avoid misunderstandings and miscalculations that lead to a situation of gravity and lamentations. However, as the Secretary of State acknowledged in a press conference, both parties left their most urgent problems unresolved.
China has refused to resume military-to-military communications, a key issue in its roadmap, for now. “China has refused to go ahead with this and it is an issue on which we must continue to work because it is very important to restore these channels”, replied Blinken, who on Sunday spent more than five hours talking with the minister of Chinese Foreigners, Qin Gang.
“It is an imperative issue. It is absolutely vital that there is this communication, underlined by recent incidents that we saw in the air and at sea”, he pointed out. “If we agree that we have a responsibility in how we should manage our relationships, if it is in our common interest that this does not lead to conflict, then we must agree and agree that these channels that we both consider necessary must include communications between the military”, indicated Blinken. “There is no immediate progress – he concluded – but it is a priority for us”.
