DPA
Washington
After serious diplomatic disagreements between Washington and Beijing, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China at the end of the week, the State Department announced on Wednesday.
Blinken will also visit London to attend the Ukraine Recovery Conference, “to help mobilize international support from the public and private sector to help Ukraine recover from Russia’s brutal and ongoing attacks,” his office said in a statement.
The US top diplomat will also meet with counterparts from Britiain, Ukraine, and other partners and allies while in London.
Blinken will leave for Beijing on Friday, making up for a long-planned trip that he cancelled at short notice in early February because of espionage allegations against China prompted by what US officials feared was a spy balloon floating over the country.
Blinken will meet with high-ranking representatives of the Chinese government during his stay in Beijing, his office said. One aim of the trip is to maintain open channels of communication between the two countries in order to manage relations responsibly.
Blinken will also address bilateral concerns, global and regional issues and possible fields of cooperation, according to the State Department. Shortly before the announcement, Blinken spoke on the phone with his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang.
Relations between the United States and China have been increasingly tense in recent months. US President Joe Biden’s administration sees China as the biggest geopolitical challenge and is taking a tough line with Beijing.
In early February, the US military shot down a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the US. Washington accused Beijing of using it to survey military installations. Beijing, on the other hand, called it a civilian research balloon that had gone off course and complained that the US had overreacted. The US followed up by accusing China of running a large international spying programme, which Beijing also rejected.
Blinken then cancelled an imminent visit to China in February on short notice because of the spying affair, but did meet the top Chinese foreign policy official, Wang Yi, later in February on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
However, the meeting did not result in any real détente. Blinken always emphasized that he wanted to travel to China as soon as the circumstances were right, but there has been little exchange between the two in recent months.
In May there was some movement when Biden’s National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met Wang in Vienna. Afterwards, the US said it was ready to put the recent espionage affair behind it. In early June, a high-ranking official from the State Department travelled to China.
