Blinken to Visit China, Seek Renewed Communications as Regime Expands Military

Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif., on Oct. 17, 2022. Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling to China this week to meet with Chinese communist leadership, the State Department has acknowledged.

Blinken will meet with senior Chinese officials during a series of meetings in Beijing on June 18 and 19. He will seek to reestablish regular communications between the two powers, the State Department said in a statement.

The visit is part of a larger effort by the Biden administration to erect guardrails around the two powers’ increasingly bitter competition, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

“Intense competition requires intense and tough diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict, and that’s what we intend for this visit,” Miller said during a June 14 press briefing.

Miller said Blinken would seek to achieve three broad objectives in Beijing: reestablishing normal communications, championing U.S. values and interests, and identifying potential avenues for mutual cooperation.

Manage China Competition Without Conflict

The visit to China is Blinken’s first in his role as the top U.S. diplomat, as well as the first time a secretary of state has traveled to Beijing since 2018.

Blinken was previously scheduled to visit China earlier in the year. Those plans were scrapped when a Chinese spy balloon traversed over the continental United States, collecting information on three military sites associated with the U.S. nuclear program.

Since then, the Biden administration has repeatedly stated that the trip would still take place as part of its wider effort to engage with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

“We thought it was important that there be a direct channel of communication between our two countries,” Miller said.

“Obviously, we have a competitive relationship with China ... but it’s important as two of the world’s great powers that we have the ability to directly communicate with each other so that competition doesn’t veer into conflict.”

The CCP, which rules China as a single-party state, has systematically sought to cut or reduce communications with the United States over the past year and a half.

That communications blackout has mostly affected military-to-military communications, which U.S. leadership says is vital to managing Sino–U.S. competition peacefully and without catastrophic miscommunication.

Ely Ratner, assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said last month that the CCP is refusing virtually all communications with the U.S. military, whether it be Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, regional commanders, or even civilian Pentagon employees.

The Biden administration is seeking to draw China back to the table out of fear that the lack of communication could lead to a catastrophic miscommunication amid increasingly tense military encounters in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.

To that end, Blinken held a phone call with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang, on June 13. During the call, Blinken and Qin discussed the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to avoid miscalculations and conflict.

Blinken also told Qin that the United States would use diplomatic engagements to raise areas of concern and cooperation.

US: Engagement Won’t Change CCP

Though the Biden administration continues a meaningful dialogue with the CCP, officials have hinted that there is an understanding that traditional engagement with the regime has failed, and new approaches will be needed to manage the relationship effectively.

Put simply, the administration now acknowledges that economic and diplomatic engagement with the CCP won’t reform the regime, National Security Council coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs Kurt Campbell said during a June 14 press call.

“We’re clear-eyed about [China],” he said. “We know efforts to shape or reform China over several decades have failed. And we expect China to be around and to be a major player on the world stage for the rest of our lifetimes.

“We are in competition with China, but we do not seek conflict, confrontation, or a new Cold War. We are for managing the competition responsibly.”

He added that the United States would “push back” against CCP attempts to provoke a crisis in the Taiwan Strait or elsewhere, but that open communications between the two nations are still vital to prevent unnecessary escalations.

“Intense competition requires intense diplomacy if we’re going to manage tensions,” Campbell said. “That is the only way to clear up misperceptions, to signal, to communicate, and to work together where and when our interests align.

“We have an interest in setting up crisis communication mechanisms to reduce conflict risk.”

Not all agree with the administration’s dedication to increasing engagement with the CCP.

Critics of the trip have portrayed the visit as a kowtow to an increasingly authoritarian regime that has shown no signs of liberalizing after decades of engagement.

“The Biden administration continues to bend the knee to the CCP,” Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) said in a tweet.

“Weak and naive.”

China Continues War Preparations

Blinken’s trip to China comes amid increased efforts by the CCP to prepare its military and population for conflict.

Twice in the past month, CCP leader Xi Jinping has warned the Chinese people that they must prepare for “extreme scenarios.” Likewise, the regime is attempting to build up its domestic industrial and economic base in order to ensure continued operation in the event of war.

Xi has ordered the regime’s military wing to be ready to conquer Taiwan by 2027, although it’s unclear if the regime has committed to actually conducting such an invasion.

Likewise, the CCP is developing military capabilities specifically designed to overcome and annihilate U.S. systems in the Indo-Pacific.

These include new aircraft carriers, space, and counterspace capabilities, and the largest nuclear expansion since the Cold War.

Currently, the United States estimates that the regime will quintuple its arsenal of around 300 nuclear weapons to 1,500 by 2035. To date, the regime has rebuffed all attempts to draw it into nonproliferation talks and won’t engage in arms control agreements with the United States.

Slowing that proliferation is a key area of concern for the Biden administration.

“Simply put, we have not yet seen a willingness from [China] to compartmentalize strategic stability from broader issues of the relationship,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier this month.

“Today, we now stand at what our president would call an ‘inflection point’ in our nuclear stability and security.”

When asked by The Epoch Times whether Blinken would broach the topic of nonproliferation during his visit, the State Department’s Miller said the administration wouldn’t telegraph its specific talking points ahead of time.

“I’m not going to read out the specific comments that we expect to raise in the meetings before we have them, other than to say that we have a number of issues of concern, we have issues on which we think that we can cooperate, and we will raise a wide range of topics with the Chinese officials,” Miller said.

Asked if the Biden administration considered nuclear proliferation an arena where the United States and the CCP might cooperate, Miller declined to comment.