US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with China’s President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing, the State Department has confirmed.
Mr Blinken became the first American diplomat to visit China in almost five years after touching down on Sunday for two days of high-stakes talks aimed at cooling relations between the nations.
On Sunday he met the Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang for an extended discussion, which was followed by a working dinner.
Mr Blinken will have additional talks on Monday with Mr Qin, as well as China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, and President Jinping.
Mr Blinken and Mr Qin held “candid, substantive and constructive talks”, a State Department spokesman said.
“The secretary emphasised the importance of diplomacy and maintaining open channels of communication to reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said.
He said Mr Blinken invited Mr Qin to visit Washington to continue the discussions.
Prospects for any significant breakthroughs in Beijing are slim, as already strained ties have grown increasingly fraught in recent years.
Mr Blinken is the highest-level US official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office.
Potential conflict points range from trade with Taiwan and human rights conditions in China and Hong Kong to Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a statement that Mr Blinken’s visit “coincides with a critical juncture in China-U.S. relations, and it is necessary to make a choice between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict”.
They blamed the “US side’s erroneous perception of China, leading to incorrect policies towards China” for the current “low point” in relations.
It said the US had a responsibility to halt “the spiraling decline of China-US relations to push it back to a healthy and stable track” and that Mr Wang had “demanded that the US stop hyping up the `China threat theory’, lift illegal unilateral sanctions against China, abandon suppression of China’s technological development, and refrain from arbitrary interference in China’s internal affairs.”
