Threats on TikTok, American restrictions on semiconductor exports to China, and now a Russian cargo ship transporting North Korean munitions… The list of issues poisoning relations between the United States and China is long.
While US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is making his second visit to China in less than a year, and the meeting was not officially scheduled, he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping this Friday at the People’s Hall in Beijing. “The two countries should be partners, not rivals,” Xi said, according to state television CCTV. “Many problems still need to be resolved and additional efforts are still possible,” he stressed during his meeting with Blinken.
If relations between the two powers have “made positive progress” since the end of 2023, following his meeting with Joe Biden in San Francisco in November, “many problems still need to be resolved and additional efforts are still possible” . “I proposed three main principles: mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation,” added the Chinese president about bilateral relations. Adding: “The Earth is big enough for China and the United States to each develop and prosper.”
A little earlier, before starting closed-door meetings at the Diaoyutai state guest house, then a working lunch with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the latter had warned Blinken against risk of “deterioration” of their links. The “great ship” of Sino-American relations has stabilized, “but negative factors continue to increase and accumulate” and they are “facing all kinds of disruptions,” he warned.
“China’s legitimate development rights have been unduly oppressed and our fundamental interests are being called into question,” the minister said, referring to US restrictions in the technology sector. “Should China and the United States continue to move in the right direction of stability, or return to that of deterioration? “, he pretended to wonder.
Blinken wanted to talk about Beijing’s support for Moscow
The head of American diplomacy responded that “active diplomacy” was necessary to advance the agenda established by the American and Chinese presidents. “In our view, there is no substitute for face-to-face diplomacy,” Blinken said, adding that he wanted to ensure that “we are as clear as possible on the areas where we have differences, at least for avoid misunderstandings, to avoid bad calculations.”
If the list of Chinese grievances is so long, it will limit the examination of American grievances. Not sure, in this context, that Blindent will be able to address all the planned subjects. Washington is particularly concerned about China’s “trade policies and non-market economic practices”. The White House is also concerned about the role that China plays with Russia in its war against Ukraine, as evidenced by the presence of a Russian container ship, sanctioned by the United States, under repair in a port Chinese after having made numerous comings and goings between Russia and North Korea, undoubtedly to deliver the munitions that the Pyongyang regime sells to Moscow.