Blinken to meet Wang on visit this week
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China this week to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi on a “range of bilateral, regional and global issues”, including unfair trade practices and industrial overcapacity, a senior American official has said.
The trip from Wednesday to Friday comes as the administration of Joe Biden treads a delicate line staying engaged with China even as it adopts tougher rhetoric and trade-policy stances in the run-up to the American presidential election in November.
“We are confident that our Chinese hosts will arrange a productive and constructive visit,” a senior State Department official said on Friday.
Blinken would spend “considerable time” with Wang during the visit to build on the intensive diplomacy conducted over the past year to manage competition and avoid a miscalculation or conflict, the official added.
The two are expected to discuss counter-narcotics, artificial intelligence, enhanced people-to-people ties and communication between their two militaries.
Blinken would also “clearly and directly” express US concerns over what it saw as China’s growing support for Russia’s defence industrial base, as well as tensions in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East, according to the official.
The American delegation will include State Department officials Elizabeth Allen, undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, and Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Blinken’s visit follows US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent trip to Beijing.
This month, the nations’ defence chiefs spoke by video, their first direct dialogue in two years. Two senior officials – Kritenbrink and Sarah Beran, the National Security Council’s senior director for China and Taiwan affairs – also visited Beijing.
The envoys have delivered messages that Blinken will reinforce, including a warning not to export China’s economic problems by flooding foreign markets with cheap products.
“They’re trying to keep the momentum going from the Yellen visit and keep up some level of positive optics,” said Paul Triolo, a former American government official now with the Albright Stonebridge Group. “But as you enter the political season in the US, you’re going to have some tough messages on assisting Russia and on overcapacity,”
“The biggest thing is going to be trying to avoid appearing too positive and giving fodder to the Republicans.”
The trip underscores that the Biden administration is navigating a bifurcated strategy: on the one hand prioritising stable relations with China following a summit last November with President Xi Jinping in California, and a talk on the phone between the two leaders in early April, while also hammering Beijing to connect with American voters.
Specifically, Biden is courting blue-collar voters and trying to avoid being outflanked by his presumptive Republican opponent this fall, former president Donald Trump, who has staked out strong anti-China positions.
The president’s hardening stance was on display last Wednesday at a labour union event in Pennsylvania where he called for a tripling of duties on Chinese steel and aluminium.
Biden further used the visit to the electoral swing state to announce investigations under Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974, targeting alleged subsidies involving Chinese shipbuilding, logistics and the maritime industry.
He also pointedly criticised China’s weak economy, ageing population, “xenophobia” and purported willingness to bend the rules. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating,” Biden told a crowd of cheering steelworkers.
Apart from discussing Taiwan, Blinken and Wang were expected to focus on the South China Sea, the Ukraine war and the potential for Chinese interference in the US election, said Jeffrey Moon of China Moon Strategies and formerly at the National Security Council.
Xi might also agree to meet Blinken, analysts added. They also said Washington liked the publicity it received in China of Yellen spending time in Guangzhou, away from the capital, and was trying to replicate that with a portion of Blinken’s trip being planned for Shanghai.
For its part, Beijing is likely to voice its frustration over US export restrictions on semiconductors and other items seen as advancing China’s military stature, in addition to offering its take on many issues on the American agenda.
“China is really worked up about the technology stuff, and Xi has become much more involved,” Triolo said. “That has the most potential to blow up.
“Those discussions are tough. That’s why Xi has put technology on nearly the same level as Taiwan. He’s been talking about it in the same context, as a red line.”