Blinken Could Meet Xi on Final Day of Talks in China

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) shakes hands with China's Director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, on June 19, 2023. LEAH MILLIS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. State Secretary Antony Blinken met with China’s top diplomat and will potentially meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as he nears the end of his two-day visit to Beijing on Monday.

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi greeted Blinken at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse on Monday. They exchanged handshakes upon meeting and posed for photos before proceeding to begin their discussions in the hall for three hours. Neither made comments in front of reporters.

The focus remains on whether Blinken will have a meeting with Xi later in the day, but neither side has officially confirmed the meeting.

Blinken is the first secretary of state to visit Beijing in five years. Washington has sought engagement with Beijing to reduce tensions as the communist regime has been rejecting military-level bilateral exchanges with the United States.

On the first day of his visit, Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in what the State Department described as a “candid” and “constructive“ five and a half hour meeting.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) walks with China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang (R) ahead of a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on June 18, 2023. Leah Millis/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

Blinken “emphasized the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication across the full range of issues [between China and the United States] to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a statement.

“The Secretary raised a number of issues of concern, as well as opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational issues with the PRC where our interests align,” Miller said, without specifying. PRC is the acronym for China’s official name: the People’s Republic of China.

He added that Blinken made clear that the United States will always stand up for the interests of the American people and “work with its allies and partners to advance our vision for a world that is free, open, and upholds the international rules-based order.”

Miller said that both sides agreed on the need to facilitate exchanges between their people. Blinken also invited Qin to visit Washington, and they agreed to arrange a reciprocal visit but did not specify a date.

Taiwan Issue

Relations between the United States and China have soured over several issues, including Hong Kong and particularly Taiwan, a self-governing island that China regards as its own and has vowed to seize by any means necessary. The United States has no official diplomatic relationship with Taiwan but is obligated to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

While the State Department’s readout did not mention any discussions related to the Taiwan issue during Blinken’s meeting with Qin, the Chinese readout of the meeting emphasized that Qin had conveyed to Blinken that Taiwan is “the most important issue in Sino-U.S. relations, and the most prominent risk.”

At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 3, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that China’s military had “continued to conduct an alarming number of risky intercepts of U.S. and allied aircraft flying lawfully in international air.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks during the 20th Shangri-La Dialogue summit in Singapore on June 3, 2023. Roslan Rahman/AFP via Getty Images

Austin made it clear that the United States does not have any intention of seeking conflict, but that “we will not flinch in the face of bullying or coercion.

“We’ve all just seen another troubling case of aggressive and unprofessional flying by the PRC. So we will support our allies and partners as they defend themselves against coercion and bullying,” he said at the summit.

Austin warned that any armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait could unsettle and disrupt the world.

The USS Chung-Hoon observes a Chinese navy ship conduct what it called an "unsafe” Chinese maneuver in the Taiwan Strait, on June 3, 2023. The Chinese navy ship cut sharply across the path of the American destroyer, forcing the U.S. ship to slow to avoid a collision. Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Andre T. Richard/U.S. Navy via AP

Earlier this month, a Chinese warship came within 150 yards of colliding with a U.S. destroyer during a Canada–U.S. joint sailing mission through the Taiwan Strait, according to the U.S. military. Washington described the naval maneuver as “unsafe,” while Beijing defended its actions by accusing the “countries concerned” of deliberately provoking risks.

Frank Fang and Dorothy Li contributed to this report.