US wants to reduce the risk of conflict with China

KIEN HOA (Synthesis)

During his visit to Beijing on June 18 and 19, Secretary of State Antony Blinken became the highest-ranking US government official to visit China since 2019, the first US secretary of state to visit Beijing since 2018, and the highest-ranking government official of President Joe Biden's administration to visit China since 2021. Although no breakthrough is expected to improve relations between the world's largest and second largest economies , Mr. Blinken's trip could help the US and China reduce the risk of confrontation, even conflict.

The main goals of the US

President Xi Jinping (right) received billionaire Bill Gates on June 16. Photo: Xinhua

Kurt Campbell, the US special envoy for the Indo-Pacific region, said on June 14 that Secretary of State Blinken has three goals during his trip to China. First, to establish communication channels to discuss serious challenges, address misperceptions and prevent miscalculations. Second, to raise US concerns on a range of issues. And third, to explore the potential for cooperation on transnational challenges, including combating climate change. US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink emphasized that Mr. Blinken's trip focuses on establishing communication channels to address misperceptions and prevent miscalculations, while ensuring that competition between rival superpowers does not lead to conflict.

Mr. Blinken was supposed to visit Beijing in February this year, but the incident of a Chinese “spy balloon” being detected in the sky of the US and then shot down caused the trip to be postponed indefinitely. However, the US Secretary of State later met with Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Germany. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Mr. Wang in Vienna, Austria in May. Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao visited Washington to meet with US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo in May on the occasion of his trip to the US to attend the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Trade Ministers' Meeting.

In addition to the above contacts, the two countries also frequently engage in tense exchanges. This includes Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu refusing to meet his US counterpart Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in early June, and the two sides have exchanged harsh criticisms. In addition, a Chinese warship is said to have nearly collided with a US destroyer in international waters in the Taiwan Strait. Immediately after the two events, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kritenbrink and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Burns visited China.

However, before visiting China, Mr. Blinken had a tense phone call with Foreign Minister Qin Gang, signaling that the top US diplomat's trip would not be a breakthrough.

Waiting for Blinken - Xi Jinping meeting

Before flying to Beijing, Secretary of State Blinken hosted his Singaporean counterpart Vivian Balakrishnan in Washington on June 16. Speaking at a press conference, Mr. Blinken said his trip to China was a result of the summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden held in Bali, Indonesia last November. Mr. Blinken said the US wanted to establish “open and empowered” channels of communication to avoid miscalculation, express concerns frankly and explore potential areas of cooperation between the US and China on global issues, including economic stability and climate change. “Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not lead to confrontation or conflict,” Mr. Blinken stressed.

Analysts say the measure of success for US Secretary of State Blinken’s highly anticipated visit to China is not whether it produces groundbreaking deals but whether it restores some predictability to the relationship between the two rivals. Ryan Haas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the trip was the first step in discovering whether the two sides have enough common intentions to try to correct the trajectory of the relationship. The key to predicting whether Sino-US relations can improve is whether Xi Jinping meets with Secretary of State Blinken, said Patricia Kim, also a Brookings fellow. Xi recently spent time with billionaire Bill Gates, so it would be surprising if he didn’t. Failure to do so, Kim said, would send a message that something is wrong.

During a meeting with the Microsoft co-founder on June 16, President Xi Jinping said that Bill Gates was the “first American friend” he had met in Beijing this year. He also stressed that China “always places its hope on the American people and hopes to maintain the friendship between the two peoples.”

According to the South China Morning Post, Mr. Blinken's trip to China also has a major goal of serving the APEC Summit hosted by the US in San Francisco this November. According to Ms. Yun Sun, Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center (USA), Mr. Xi wants to come to San Francisco and have a bilateral meeting with Mr. Biden. Mr. Xi and Mr. Biden may even meet on the sidelines of the Group of 20 (G20) summit in India next September.

According to David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, “opening the door” to Secretary Blinken is China’s way of demonstrating to Europe and US allies that Beijing is willing to cooperate to “prevent a downward spiral” with Washington, thereby reassuring foreign investors and domestic private sector in the face of slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy. Europe is hesitant to fully cooperate with the US to compete technologically and contain China. This is also one of the reasons for Chinese Premier Li Qiang’s visit to Germany and France from June 18.

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