A China Central Television information broadcast reveals footage of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken assembly with China’s President Xi Jinping on Monday.

Greg Baker/AFP through Getty Images

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Greg Baker/AFP through Getty Images

A China Central Television information broadcast reveals footage of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken assembly with China’s President Xi Jinping on Monday.

Greg Baker/AFP through Getty Images

The secretary of state has simply wrapped his go to to China, having put effort and time into a rustic of huge significance to the U.S. Towards the top of his journey, Antony Blinken met with China’s chief, Xi Jinping, with whom he spoke for greater than half an hour.

Shortly afterwards, Blinken spoke to NPR. He known as the Beijing talks “candid, substantive, and constructive.”

Who is he? Blinken has been by Joe Biden’s facet because the president was within the Senate.

• He has an extended historical past in international affairs and has spent a lot of his time as secretary of state assembly with companions and allies, telling them that the U.S. is again after the Donald Trump period. 
• He as soon as joked that he might need to seek out an condominium close to NATO headquarters, as a result of he is spending a lot time there.

Blinken joins Xi on the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Monday.

Leah Millis/POOL/AFP through Getty Images

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Leah Millis/POOL/AFP through Getty Images

What’s the massive deal about this journey to China? This is America’s most consequential relationship, each with regards to commerce and geopolitics.

• Blinken was scheduled to go earlier this 12 months, however the journey in February was scuttled as a Chinese spy balloon slowly made its way across the United States. The U.S. ended up capturing it down and it has taken months to get this journey again on observe.
• Much of the Biden administration’s method to the world focuses on the U.S. competitors with China. Blinken has simply turn into the very best stage administration official to journey to Beijing.
• He’s additionally been a key determine because the U.S. rebuilds alliances throughout the globe to counter China and uphold worldwide norms.
• Blinken known as the Beijing talks constructive, however he additionally mentioned China has not agreed to renew military-to-military cooperation with the United States, although he raised that problem repeatedly throughout conferences with Chinese officers.
• On Taiwan, the thorniest problem between the U.S. and China, Blinken pressured the significance of cooperatively managing the “challenge” of Taiwan, as the 2 have finished “for nearly five decades,” particularly given Taiwan’s necessary function in international commerce. 

Want to know extra? Listen to NPR’s interview with Blinken by tapping the play button on the prime of this text.

What are individuals saying?

• This journey was intently watched not simply by Chinese and American commentators, but additionally by these from Asian international locations reminiscent of Singapore. Here’s what Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan mentioned on Friday when assembly with Blinken:

“There are many global, planetary issues – climate, pandemics, even cyber security – which require the United States and China to work off the same page and be key pillars for a global system which will help increase resilience to threats to welfare, health and prosperity for people all over the world.”

• In China, anti-American sentiment is using excessive. Beijing blames Washington for inflicting issues within the bilateral relations. Professor Zhu Feng, a outstanding worldwide relations scholar at Nanjing University in China, instructed NPR he is “pessimistic” in regards to the trajectory of the relations. He says as a result of the U.S. is “determined to treat China as its biggest competitor,” it is unlikely to see any elementary change following such a go to.

• China’s state-backed newspaper, The Global Times, had this to say in regards to the assembly between Xi and Blinken:

“[It] signaled that the talks between Chinese and U.S. senior diplomats from Sunday to Monday reached some consensus, showing that the Chinese government highly values the stable development of China-U.S. relations, underscoring its sincerity and goodwill and paving the way for the next phase of China-U.S. high-level interactions in coming months.”

So, what now?

• Talks between the world’s two largest economies are set to proceed. Over the weekend, Blinken invited China’s international minister, Qin Gang, to go to Washington to proceed the dialog. 
• Whether the 2 international locations will resume their military-military cooperation stays to be seen — and stays to be the realm of concern to many China watchers.
• Leaders from the U.S. and China are prone to meet in particular person within the coming months: G20 this fall in India, and APEC in November in San Francisco. 
• But home politics within the U.S. nonetheless matter, particularly because the 2024 U.S. presidential election approaches. On the Hill, the top of the high-profile House China committee, Mike Gallagher, for instance, called the administration’s interaction with Beijing “zombie engagement” (though not everybody on this committee agrees with Gallagher. For instance, Rep. Andy Kim.)

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