BEIJING (Al Jazeera) – United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Chinese Counterpart Qin Gang in Beijing at the start of the highest-level trip by a U.S. official to China in nearly five years as the two powers aim to stabilize ties.
Blinken’s two-day trip on Sunday comes amid frosty bilateral ties and follows the discovery of a suspected spy balloon above the U.S. in February that prompted him to delay a trip that had been planned for the same month.
With the world’s two largest economies at odds on an array of issues from trade to technology and regional security, both China and the U.S. have voiced guarded hopes of improving communication, although they have played down expectations of a significant breakthrough.
U.S. President Joe Biden played down the balloon episode as Blinken was heading to China, saying, “I don’t think the leadership knew where it was and knew what was in it and knew what was going on.”
“I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional,” Biden told reporters on Saturday.
Biden said he hoped to again meet Chinese President Xi Jinping after a lengthy meeting in November on the sidelines of a Group of 20 (G20) summit in Bali, where the two agreed on Blinken’s visit.
“I’m hoping that, over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along,” Biden said.
The two leaders are likely to attend the next G20 summit, in September in New Delhi, and Xi has been invited to travel to San Francisco in November when the U.S. hosts leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping.
Blinken is expected to meet top Chinese officials and attend a banquet at the state guesthouse in the Diaoyutai gardens.
A phone call between Blinken and his Chinese counterpart Qin underlined the heightened tension between the two sides.
“Beijing is looking for assurances from the U.S. that it won’t meddle into its domestic affaires, that it won’t cross the red lines of its core interests, particularly Taiwan,” said Al-Jazeera’s Katrine Yu reporting from the Chinese capital.
But expectations of any breakthrough from the visit are very low, Yu added.
Ties between Beijing and Washington have deteriorated across the board, raising the specter that the two might one day clash militarily over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own.
They are also at odds over issues ranging from trade, U.S. efforts to hold back China’s semiconductor industry and human rights.
Biden’s National Security Adviser, Jake Sullivan, also travelled to Tokyo for separate three-way meetings involving Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.
In recent months, the U.S. has reached deals on troop deployments in Southern Japan and the Northern Philippines, both strategically close to Taiwan.
Blinken before departure also met in Washington with his counterpart from ally Singapore, a U.S. ally, who voiced hope the U.S. would stay as a power but also find ways to coexist with a rising China.