Antony Blinken’s visit to China didn’t resolve tensions, but it’s a start

Blinken came away from his trip to China without major deliverables. — AFP

FOR the first time in five years, a US secretary of state set foot on Chinese soil for an official visit. Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, spent last weekend in multiple meetings with senior Chinese officials in the hope that a little jaw-jaw will begin the process of defusing the mountain of grievances the United States and China have with one another.

Despite grumblings from China hawks on Capitol Hill that Blinken’s visit to China was a wimpy display of appeasement to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the reality is that the trip was long overdue. Blinken was originally scheduled to visit China in February, almost three months after Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali and pledged to improve a bilateral relationship that, at that point, was circling the drain.