Senior US officials visit Beijing in search of thaw

Two senior Biden administration officials visited their counterparts in Beijing on Monday for “candid and productive discussions” on the state of US-China ties, according to the US State Department.

The trip by Daniel Kritenbrink, Under Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Sarah Beran, Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs at the National Security Council, was aimed at “to keep the lines of communication open,” he said. Press release.

It is the highest-level visit by US officials to China since US Secretary of State Antony Blinken banned a trip to Beijing in February over the spy balloon episode, when a Chinese balloon flew through China’s airspace. USA

It also comes after a weekend war of words between the countries’ top defense officials and two high-profile near misses between their militaries.

The State Department press release was light on detail, noting little more than who Kritenbrink and Beran met with: Ma Zhaoxu, the executive vice minister of Foreign Affairs, and Yang Tao, director general of the Department of North American Affairs and Oceania of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The two sides exchanged views on the bilateral relationship, cross-strait issues, communication channels and other issues,” he added. “American officials made it clear that the United States would compete vigorously and defend American interests and values.”

Speaking at the State Department press briefing on Monday, deputy spokesman Vedant Patel also said he could not provide further details, but said Blinken had not made any new plans to visit Beijing.

“I’m just not going to go into the details of the meeting beyond what we already shared,” Patel said. “As we previously stated…we hope to reschedule this visit, when conditions permit.”

rising tensions

Kritenbrink and Beran are the highest-level US officials to visit Beijing since Blinken’s cancellation, prompting some Chinese officials to cut lines of communication with their US defense counterparts.

Blinken’s postponed trip was meant to be a moment of thawing in China-U.S. ties after bilateral relations bottomed out last year following then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. in August.

Rick Waters, deputy assistant secretary of state for China and Taiwan and head of the State Department’s “China House,” also visited Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong in March, and the State Department at the time also refused to provide many details.

Yet aside from Waters’s visit, US-China ties apparently only worsened in the four months after Blinken’s rejected trip.

Near collisions between US and Chinese ships and planes in the Taiwan Strait and over the South China Sea, over which Beijing claims sovereignty, have also become more frequent, with two such incidents occurring in the past two weeks alone. .

near misses

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby blamed China’s military for aggressive maneuvers near US ships conducting freedom of navigation operations, but said US officials would “continue to keep the lines open” for talks with their Chinese counterparts.

“It’s part of a growing aggressiveness from the PRC that we’re dealing with and that we’re prepared to address,” Kirby said, referring to the Chinese government. “It won’t be long before someone gets hurt.”

In Singapore over the weekend, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in an apparent reference to China’s decision to cut off communication after Blinken’s trip cancellation, also accused Beijing of not being “willing to engage more seriously in better mechanisms for crisis management between our two armies.”

Speaking at the same conference, Chinese Defense Li Shangfu shout “some country” for what he said was a “selective approach” to international law and “imposing its rules on others.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.