Antony Blinken to visit China next week and discuss ‘bilateral, regional and global issues’: official

Meetings with Foreign Minister Wang Yi expected to cover unfair trade practices and industrial overcapacity in ‘productive and constructive’ trip
Visit comes as Biden administration treads delicate line staying engaged with China even as it adopts tougher rhetoric before November election

US-China relations

Khushboo Razdanin WashingtonandMark Magnierin New York

Published: 2:00am, 21 Apr 2024

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China next week to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi on a “range of bilateral, regional and global issues” including unfair trade practices and industrial overcapacity, a senior US official said ahead of the visit.

The trip from April 24 to 26 comes as the administration of Joe Biden treads a delicate line staying engaged with China even as it adopts tougher rhetoric and trade policy stances in the run-up to the American presidential election in November.

“We are confident that our Chinese hosts will arrange a productive and constructive visit,” said a senior State Department official in a background call with reporters on Friday.

Blinken would spend “considerable time” with Wang during the visit to build on the “intensive diplomacy” conducted over the past year to manage competition and avoid a “miscalculation or conflict”, the official added. The two are expected to discuss counter-narcotics, artificial intelligence, enhanced people-to-people ties and communication between their two militaries.

Behind the camera-ready handshakes and smiles, Blinken would also “clearly and directly” express US concerns over what it sees as China’s growing support for Russia’s defence industrial base as well as tensions in the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East, according to the official.

The American delegation will include State Department officials Elizabeth Allen, undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs; Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs; Todd Robinson, assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs; and Nathaniel Fick, ambassador-at-large for cyberspace and digital policy.

Blinken is the latest in a string of senior administration officials going to China this year seeking to keep communication lines open, “even in areas where our two countries disagree”, a US spokesman added. His visit follows US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s recent visit to Beijing.

This week the nations’ defence chiefs spoke by video, marking their first direct dialogue in two years. Also this week, two senior officials – Kritenbrink and Sarah Beran, the National Security Council’s senior director for China and Taiwan affairs – visited Beijing.

The envoys have delivered some stern messages that Blinken will reinforce, including a warning not to export China’s economic problems by flooding foreign markets with cheap products overseas and to halt support for Russia in its war with Ukraine.

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“They’re trying to keep the momentum going from the Yellen visit and keep up some level of positive optics,” said Paul Triolo, a former American government official now with the Albright Stonebridge Group. “But as you enter the political season in the US, you’re going to have some tough messages on assisting Russia and on overcapacity,”

“The biggest thing is going to be trying to avoid appearing too positive and giving fodder to the Republicans.”

The trip underscores that the Biden administration is navigating a bifurcated strategy: on the one hand prioritising stable relations with China following the summit last November with President Xi Jinping in California and phone call between the two leaders in early April, while hammering Beijing to connect with American voters.

Specifically, Biden is courting blue-collar voters and trying to avoid being outflanked by his presumptive Republican opponent this fall, former president Donald Trump, who has staked out strong anti-China positions.

The president’s hardening stance was on display on Wednesday at a labour union event in Pennsylvania where he called for a tripling of duties on Chinese steel and aluminium.

US President Joe Biden speaks at a conference of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Washington on Friday. The president seeks re-election this fall. Photo: EPA-EFE

Biden further used the visit to the electoral swing state to announce investigations under Section 301 of the US Trade Act of 1974 targeting alleged subsidies involving Chinese shipbuilding, logistics and the maritime industry.

He also pointedly criticised China’s weak economy, ageing population, “xenophobia” and purported willingness to bend the rules. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating,” he told a crowd of cheering steelworkers.

Blinken, beyond raising overcapacity and Russia, would widen the lens in his role as coordinator for the US inter-agency process, analysts said.

Apart from discussing Taiwan, he and Wang are expected to focus on the South China Sea, the Ukraine war and the potential for Chinese interference in the US election, said Jeffrey Moon of China Moon Strategies and formerly at the National Security Council.

Xi might also agree to meet Blinken, analysts added. They added that Washington liked the publicity it received in China of Yellen spending time in Guangzhou away from the capital and was trying to replicate that with a portion of Blinken’s trip being spent in Shanghai.

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For its part, Beijing is likely to voice its rising frustration over US export restrictions on advanced semiconductors and other items seen as advancing China’s military stature, in addition to offering its take on many issues on the American agenda.

“China is really worked up about the technology stuff, and Xi has become much more involved,” said Triolo. “That has the most potential to blow up. Those discussions are tough. That’s why Xi has put technology on nearly the same level as Taiwan. He’s been talking about it in the same context, as a red line.”

Beijing has lived through numerous US presidential election cycles and has seen generations of candidates bash China leading up to the polls, then tack back once elected – although the tack has been less forceful of late.

For instance, Biden reversed many of Trump’s economic and social policies once elected, but notably he has refrained from rolling back the stiff sanctions Trump imposed that sparked the ongoing US-China trade war.

“China knows the rhetoric increases around the election,” said Moon. “It doesn’t mean they will let it all pass. But they know the volume will go up.”