Blinken Set to Meet Xi as China and the U.S. Try to Ease Tensions

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was set to meet with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, on Monday in Beijing, as the two governments sought to pull relations out of a deep freeze that had raised concerns about the growing risk of a conflict between them.

Mr. Blinken met earlier on Monday with Wang Yi, China’s top foreign policy official, who said the two countries had a responsibility to the world to reverse the downward spiral of their relations, according to an official Chinese readout of the three-hour meeting. But he took a tough tone as he lay the blame on Washington for the tensions.

The State Department summary took a measured approach, saying that the two top officials had a “candid and productive discussion” and that Mr. Blinken stressed that the two powers had to responsibly manage their rivalry “through open channels of communication to ensure competition does not veer into conflict.”

The State Department announced in the mid-afternoon that Mr. Blinken would meet with Mr. Xi at 4:30 p.m. local time on Monday.

Mr. Blinken is the first American secretary of state to visit Beijing since 2018. The efforts to establish regular top-level diplomacy come as bilateral relations are at their lowest point in decades. Tensions soared in February when the Pentagon announced that a Chinese surveillance balloon was drifting across the continental United States — prompting Mr. Blinken to cancel an earlier planned trip to Beijing — and then ordered American fighter jets to shoot it down.

Relations were further strained in February when Mr. Blinken confronted Mr. Wang on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference to tell him that Washington believed China was considering providing lethal support to Russia for its war in Ukraine. China responded by freezing some important diplomatic exchanges and intensifying anti-American rhetoric.

In recent weeks, the two countries have sought to restore high-level contacts to better manage tensions that have escalated over recent years. Officials on both sides have said the two days of diplomacy in Beijing would ideally lead to a series of visits soon to the Chinese capital by other senior American officials, including Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, Gina Raimondo, the commerce secretary, and John Kerry, the special presidential envoy on climate issues.

U.S. officials say maintaining regular senior-level dialogue is important so that the two governments can quickly talk with each other during any crises that might arise, especially since their militaries are increasingly coming into close contact with each other in the seas and in the air around China and other parts of Asia.

On Monday, Mr. Wang, the top foreign policy official, said the United States should cooperate with Beijing instead of “hyping” the “China threat theory,” according to the official Chinese readout. He said Washington must lift sanctions on China and stop suppressing the country’s technological development. He accused the United States of “recklessly interfering in China’s internal affairs” on issues such as Taiwan, the de facto independent island claimed by China that the United States supplies with weapons.

No issue rankles Beijing more than Washington’s perceived growing support for Taiwan. Beijing has also sought to push back against Washington’s efforts to restrict its access to advanced semiconductor chips and manufacturing equipment, as well as deepening defense ties with regional allies, notably Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines.

The U.S. readout of the meeting with Mr. Wang said Mr. Blinken insisted his government would continue to raise areas of concern with China, but it also said the two officials “discussed opportunities to explore cooperation on shared transnational challenges.” American officials say climate change, global economic instability and fentanyl production are examples of those challenges.

On Sunday, Mr. Blinken met with Qin Gang, the Chinese foreign minister, for five and a half hours, and they had a two-hour dinner. The talks were “candid, substantive and constructive,” according to the State Department’s written summary.

State Department officials said the two governments agreed to have working groups and diplomats meet soon on a range of issues, including increased access to each country for journalists, scholars and students. The U.S. officials also said they and Chinese counterparts had agreed to expand direct commercial flights between the two nations.

The two days of meetings may arrest the deterioration in ties for now, though analysts say it will take much more for the two sides to overcome the mistrust that weighs on the relationship.

The hope is that Mr. Blinken’s visit helps spur the two governments to “shape a principled framework for managing U.S.-China relations, in order to bound the competition within acceptable limits and create more space for coordinated efforts where American and Chinese interests overlap,” said Jessica Chen Weiss, a political scientist at Cornell University who recently advised the State Department on China policy.

China has rebuffed attempts by the Biden administration to establish so-called guardrails to prevent potential accidents in contested areas like the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea from spiraling out of control. Analysts say some Chinese officials view any perception by the Americans that the Chinese government and its military can be unpredictable as itself a useful deterrent. The thinking goes that the perception might lead U.S. officials to reconsider their military’s activities in the waters and skies around China.

Analysts said China may have been driven to meet with Mr. Blinken for a number of reasons. Pressure may be mounting on Beijing to stabilize ties because of China’s worsening economy. Other countries have also been imploring China and the United States to break their cycle of hostility. Mr. Xi may have also wanted to steady the relationship so that he’s received like a global statesman if he chooses to attend a leaders’ summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group of nations in San Francisco in November.

“China has spent the past several months blaming the United States for all that is wrong in the relationship and inside China more broadly. Now, China’s leaders need to carve out political space to pivot toward more direct communication,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a China director at the National Security Council under President Obama.

“Beijing sees it as in its interest to communicate directly to manage stresses in the relationship,” he added, “and build an on-ramp for President Xi to meet with President Biden in the fall.”