US Secy Antony Blinken Meets With China’s President Xi Jinping

The United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken met with China's President Xi Jinping on Friday, a development which the New York Times said hopes to shore up the fractious relationship between the two countries despite disputes over the economy, national security, and geopolitical frictions.

The meeting followed Blinken's over-five-hour-long meeting with China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing. The top US diplomat also met with China's Minister of Security Wang Xiaohong, who serves as the country's police chief.

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson in a post on X, said, "President Xi noted that he proposed mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation to be the three overarching principles. They are both lessons learned from the past and a guide for the future.

"It is the shared desire of both the two peoples and the international community to see China and the US strengthen dialogue, manage differences and advance cooperation. The planet is big enough to accommodate the common development and respective prosperity of China and the US. China is happy to see a confident, open, prosperous, and thriving US. We hope the US can also look at China's development in a positive light".

He further said, "Over the past 45 years, the China-US relationship has gone through winds and rains, and it has some important inspirations to offer: China and the US should be partners rather than rivals; help each other succeed rather than hurt each other; seek common ground and reserve differences, rather than engage in vicious competition; and honour words with actions, rather than say one thing but do the opposite."

Blinken took to his social media handle X to post about the "in-depth and substantive meeting" today with Wang Yi. "As part of our effort to responsibly manage competition, we discussed areas of difference, in addition to areas of shared interest – like counternarcotics – where we can build on progress to deliver benefits for both our peoples," Blinken said.

Wang struck a somewhat more conciliatory tone than in the past, telling the top US diplomat that "the China-US relationship is beginning to stabilise" and also warned that negative factors in the relationship were still "increasing and building," as per the NYT report.

"I hope that we can make some progress on the issues that our presidents agreed we should cooperate on, but also clarify our differences, our intent, and make very clear to each other where we stand," Blinken responded according to the US publication.

Both China and the United States have said they were hoping for progress on a few smaller, pragmatic fronts, including improving communications between their militaries and easing travel between the two countries, the NYT reported.

A US official was cited as saying that in the meeting with Blinken and his Chinese counterpart, the US Secretary aired concerns over China's alleged support for Russia's defence industry base amid its invasion of Ukraine and stressed the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, ahead of the inauguration of Taiwan's next leader Lai Ching-te on 20 May, according to a report in Kyodo.

"China's legitimate development rights have been unreasonably suppressed and our core interests are facing challenges," China's top diplomat said at the outset of the talks, Kyodo reported.

Wang urged the United States "not to interfere in China's internal affairs, not to hold China's development back, and not to step on China's red lines" concerning what he said was his country's sovereignty, security and development interests.

"Should China and the United States keep in the right direction of moving forward with stability or return to a downward spiral? This is a major question before our two countries, and tests our sincerity and ability," Wang told Blinken during their meeting after saying US-China ties were "beginning to stabilize," according to CNN.

Earlier on 24 April, Blinken, who is on his second visit to China this year said that he was in China "to make progress on issues that matter most to the American people, including curbing fentanyl trafficking."

He said that the two sides will discuss work underway to fulfil commitments made by US President Joe Biden Xi Jinping in November 2023, as well as the areas where we have significant disagreements."

The US State Department before Blinken departs for China said that during his 24-26 April visit, Blinken will meet with senior Chinese officials in Shanghai and Beijing to discuss a range of bilateral, regional, and global issues, including the crisis in the Middle East, Russia's war against Ukraine, cross-Strait issues, and the South China Sea.

"Blinken will also discuss ongoing work to fulfil the commitments made by Presidents Biden and Xi at the Woodside Summit in November on resuming counternarcotics cooperation, military-to-military communication, artificial intelligence, and strengthening people-to-people ties, and will reiterate the importance of the United States and the PRC responsibly managing competition, even in areas where our two countries disagree," it said.

Blinken's visit follows a visit to China by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen earlier this month. (ANI)