US Secretary of State to Visit China Next Week
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will travel to China late next week for a visit that was postponed last February due to a Chinese balloon intrusion into US airspace. Officials who asked not to be identified and indicated that this would be the first visit by a senior U.S. diplomat to China since his predecessor, Mike Pompeo, in October 2018.
No Official Announcement Yet
The US State Department has not officially announced the visit. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recently said that Washington would announce the US officials’ trip “shortly” without adding any details.
Recent Developments in US-China Relations
For the first time since Joe Biden took office in the US, US-Chinese President Xi Jinping met last November at the G20 summit in Indonesia. During the meeting, they agreed to cooperate on a number of issues.
But relations between the two countries soured again in February after a Chinese observation balloon flew over the US mainland in what Washington considered an act of espionage. Blinken canceled his trip to China at the last minute.
More recently, however, both sides have been pushing for de-escalation, notably during a closed-door meeting in May in Vienna between White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and CCP Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Wang Yi.
Lingering Tensions
But tensions still linger between the two countries over the Taiwan issue, China’s claims to sovereignty over large parts of the China Sea, or even the issue of strategic electronic chips.
The upcoming visit by Blinken to China is expected to address these issues and hopefully pave the way for improved relations between the two nations.
