Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese President Xi Jinping met on Monday, June 19, and claimed to have come to an agreement to stabilize the deteriorating relations between the United States and the communist nation.
Blinken is the first American secretary of state to visit China in five years, and the most senior official within President Joe Biden's administration to make such a trip.
In this rare visit, Blinken stressed to Xi the importance of maintaining steady relations with America following years of steadily rising tensions. (Related: Biden administration looks DESPERATE to reestablish normal communications with China.)
Blinken's meeting with Xi took only 35 minutes. During this time, Xi said that the world needed relations between China and America to be "generally stable." He added that whether the two countries "can find the right way to get along bears on the future and destiny of humanity."
"I hope that, through this visit, Mr. Secretary, you will make more positive contributions to stabilizing China-U.S. relations," said Xi in a part of the meeting that was televised through Chinese state media outlets. This request was made following "candid and in-depth discussions" between the two officials that supposedly led to progress and agreement on some undetailed "specific issues."
China repeatedly claimed that the U.S. bore the brunt of the responsibility for halting the "spiraling decline of China-U.S. relations to push it back to a healthy and stable track."
The communist nation's foreign ministry even claimed that it is entirely in the hands of Washington whether or not it wants "to make a choice between dialogue or confrontation, cooperation or conflict," further blaming the U.S. for its "erroneous perception of China" which has supposedly led to "incorrect policies toward China."
China's main diplomat to the Western Hemisphere, Yang Tao, claimed that Blinken's visit "marks a new beginning" for U.S.-China relations. Blinken also met with Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang as well as top diplomat Wang Yi. The latter urged the U.S. to drop its supposed "China threat theory," to lift sanctions against Chinese officials and to stop suppressing China's technological development.
For his part, Blinken agreed on the need for stable and bilateral ties between Washington and Beijing. He added that Biden had "no illusions" about the challenges of managing this relationship.
China still not ready to reestablish military-to-military communications
Despite claiming to have made great progress in mending the deteriorating relations between the two countries, China rebuffed Blinken's main request, which is for better communications between the United States Armed Forces and China's own military, the People's Liberation Army.
"The U.S. side is surely aware of why there is difficulty in military-to-military exchanges," said Yang, who blamed the issue on American sanctions against many high-ranking Chinese officials, including members of the PLA.
Despite this clear lack of an agreement on a crucial issue, both Blinken and Xi claimed that they were satisfied with the progress made during the talks between Blinken and Xi and other senior Chinese officials.
It should also be noted that Blinken's meeting did not produce any clear agreements beyond a mutual decision to return to a vaguely broad agenda for cooperation and increasing free market competition, an agreement endorsed last year by both Xi and Biden during a summit in Bali, Indonesia.
"Progress is hard," Blinken said during a press conference, admitting to China's refusal to resume military-to-military communications. "It takes time, it takes more than one visit."
Still, both Blinken and the Chinese Communist Party officials he met with expressed their willingness to hold more talks in the future. But there is little indication that either side is prepared to bend from the issues that are causing tensions, including trade, human rights conditions for Uyghurs, Tibetans and the people of Hong Kong, the future of the democratically-governed Taiwan and the PLA's increasing militarization over the South China Sea.
What Blinken's trip has succeeded in is making sure that there will be more visits by senior U.S. and Chinese officials to each other's countries in the coming months. Qin has already agreed to pay a visit to Washington, D.C. at a "suitable time," while Xi and Biden may be able to set up a meeting in the coming months either in India or the United States.
Learn more about deteriorating relations between America and China at CommunistChina.news.
Watch this clip from "Carl Higbie Frontline" on Newsmax as news anchor Carl Higbie discusses Blinken's mistaken belief that his trip to China made real progress in mending relations.
This video is from the News Clips channel on Brighteon.com.
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