In a move that could be seen as an attempt to lower the temperature after soaring tensions, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in China on Sunday on the highest-level trip by a US official in nearly five years.
“Neither side expects breakthroughs during Blinken's two-day visit, with the world's two largest economies at odds on an array of issues from trade to technology to regional security,” mentioned a report in NDTV.
It said the two countries have increasingly voiced an interest in seeking greater stability and see a narrow window before elections next year both in the United States and Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy which Beijing has not ruled out seizing by force.
“In a sign of the fragility of the effort, Blinken had been due to visit four months ago, the fruit of a cordial summit between Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in Bali in November,” it added.
It said: “But Blinken abruptly postponed the trip after the United States said it detected a Chinese spy balloon over US soil, leading to furious calls for a response by hardliners in Washington.”
Blinken said he would seek to "responsibly manage our relationship" by finding ways to avoid "miscalculations" between the countries, it said.
"Intense competition requires sustained diplomacy to ensure that competition does not veer into confrontation or conflict," the report quoted Blinken as having said.
Blinken is the first top US diplomat to visit Beijing since a brief stop in 2018 by his predecessor Mike Pompeo, who later championed all-out confrontation with China in the final years of Donald Trump's presidency.
