In China, Blinken Faces Clashing Agendas and a Question: Will Xi Show Up?

Antony J. Blinken met in Beijing on Sunday with China’s foreign minister for seven-and-a-half hours, in the first visit of a U.S. secretary of state to China since 2018. Tense relations had delayed the trip for months: Mr. Blinken had intended to visit in February, but postponed after the Pentagon announced that a Chinese surveillance balloon was drifting across the continental United States.

Mr. Blinken and other American officials have expressed hope that the visit might open a more constructive era of diplomacy. But China has maintained a confrontational stance in recent weeks, raising concerns that the meetings in Beijing could end up being more antagonistic than amiable.

Both sides bring a list of grievances and issues to discuss in two days of meetings that are likely to be a critical gauge of whether China and the United States can mend fences anytime soon.

Mr. Blinken began his first meeting in the afternoon, when he walked down a hallway in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse with Qin Gang, China’s foreign minister, who was until a few months ago the ambassador in Washington. They sat down at long tables in a room with their delegations facing each other, starting their talks without making any opening remarks to reporters.

The talks between Mr. Blinken and Mr. Qin ran five and a half hours, one hour longer than scheduled. The two men and their aides then had a stroll together and a working dinner for two hours, State Department officials said.

A spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry struck an optimistic tone on Twitter, recalling a meeting between the top Chinese and American leaders last year when they vowed to seek to stabilize relations.

“Hope this meeting can help steer China-U.S. relations back to what the two Presidents agreed upon in Bali,” wrote the spokeswoman, Hua Chunying.

The official Chinese summary of the meeting, published by the state news media, was bleaker. Qin Gang asserted that U.S.-China relations were at their lowest point since the start of normal diplomatic ties in 1979, according to the report. Mr. Qin also pointed out that the Taiwan issue was the greatest risk to relations between China and the U.S.

One line in the American summary said: “The secretary made clear that the United States will always stand up for the interests and values of the American people and work with its allies and partners to advance our vision for a world that is free, open, and upholds the international rules-based order.”

On Monday morning, Mr. Blinken prepared to return to the state guesthouse to meet with Wang Yi, the top foreign policy official in China. In February, the two had a combative meeting on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, and it was during that weekend that Mr. Blinken publicly said Chinese officials were considering giving lethal military aid to Russia for its war in Ukraine.

What issues are on Blinken’s list?

American officials have stressed that re-establishing high-level diplomacy is their priority. They say the two sides need to establish channels of communication to defuse existing tensions that might escalate during a crisis — say, a collision between naval ships or aircraft in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.

Security issues are likely to weigh heavily. American officials have grown increasingly anxious over close brushes with the Chinese military in the seas around China. The United States is also closely watching Chinese efforts to establish military bases across Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and it has warned China not to give lethal military aid to Russia.

Mr. Blinken plans to talk with Chinese officials about global issues where the two nations might have shared interests, including climate change and economic stability worldwide, said Daniel J. Kritenbrink, the top East Asia official in the State Department.

Mr. Blinken is also likely to ask China to release some American citizens who are detained, imprisoned or banned from leaving the country, and to try to restart some people-to-people exchanges. Those might include expanding the small number of journalist visas that each country had agreed to give each other early in the Biden administration before relations got worse.

On Twitter, Ms. Hua, the Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said after the Sunday meeting that the two countries “welcomed more mutual visits by students, scholars and business people.”

U.S. officials also say they expect to talk to China about limiting the export of substances used to make fentanyl, a drug that has led to a deadly addiction problem in the United States and other countries. And the two countries might agree to allow more direct flights between them. The State Department official said after Mr. Blinken met with Mr. Qin on Sunday that the two sides had agreed to establish working-level groups on those and other issues.

What is China likely to say?

China is expected to raise a litany of grievances reflecting Beijing’s view that the United States is a declining hegemon determined to cling to power by containing China economically, militarily and diplomatically.

At the top of China’s list is Taiwan, a de facto independent island that Beijing claims as its own territory and that gets military aid from Washington.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has described Taiwan as “at the very core of China’s core interests” and has accused the United States of supporting “pro-independence” forces.

China is also likely to express frustration over U.S.-led efforts to restrict Chinese access to advanced semiconductor chips and manufacturing equipment. The restrictions, which the United States says are necessary to prevent American technology from getting into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army, could set back China’s technological development for years. China sees the ban as an example of “zero-sum competition” that is driving the two countries toward confrontation.

Despite China’s rapid military buildup, Beijing is expected to accuse Washington of trying to provoke conflict by deepening security ties with regional powers including Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia and India.

China says it ultimately wants the United States to treat it like a peer power so that it has equal say on the global stage.

Will Xi meet with Blinken personally?

Mr. Xi will likely meet with Mr. Blinken. He met with Mike Pompeo, the second secretary of state in the Trump administration, when Mr. Pompeo visited in 2018. But American and Chinese officials were still working out the final details of Mr. Blinken’s schedule this past week, and there might not be confirmation of a meeting between the two until the last minute. Much will depend on how meetings go on Sunday and early Monday.

The two men have talked before, though. Mr. Blinken has met with Mr. Xi on several occasions, including in 2011 when he traveled to Beijing and Chengdu as the national security adviser for Joe Biden, who was then the vice president and charged with going to China to get to know Mr. Xi, his counterpart at the time.

The State Department said in its readout on Sunday that Mr. Blinken had invited Mr. Qin to Washington, and two agreed to schedule a visit.

Vivian Wang contributed reporting.