Blinken meets high Shanghai official as he kicks off a tricky China journey By Reuters

By Simon Lewis

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet enterprise leaders in Shanghai on Thursday as ties between Washington and Beijing stabilise, pushing to resolve a raft of points threatening the newly gained equilibrium between the rivals.

Blinken’s go to is the most recent high-level contact between the 2 nations that, together with working teams on points from international commerce to navy communication, have tempered the general public acrimony that drove relations to historic lows early final yr.

However Washington and Beijing have made little headway on curbing China’s provide of chemical compounds used to make fentanyl, the South China Sea stays a flashpoint, and strains are rising over China’s backing of Russia in its warfare in Ukraine.

Blinken, in a brief video assertion posted to X with the Shanghai skyline within the background late on Wednesday, stated curbing the movement of chemical compounds used to make fentanyl to the U.S. from China was one among a number of points he was in China to work on.

Along with enterprise leaders, Blinken will even meet with native officers and college students earlier than heading to Beijing for talks on Friday together with his counterpart, Overseas Minister Wang Yi, and a probable assembly with President Xi Jinping.

Blinken additionally attended a basketball sport and dined at a steamed bun restaurant Wednesday night time with U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns, underscoring the significance to the U.S. of rebuilding private connections with the Chinese language folks.

“Face to face diplomacy matters,” stated Blinken within the quick clip posted to X. “It is important for avoiding miscommunications and misperceptions, and to advance the interests of the American people.”

Blinken will press China to cease its corporations from retooling and resupplying Russia’s defence industrial base. Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, simply days after agreeing a “no limits” partnership with Beijing, and whereas China has steered away from offering arms, U.S. officers warn Chinese language corporations are sending dual-use know-how that helps Russia’s warfare effort.

A Chinese language international ministry official quoted by state information company Xinhua earlier this week stated relations “have shown a trend of stopping decline and stabilising,” since Biden and Xi met in San Francisco in November.

However the official criticised what they referred to as Washington’s “stubborn strategy of containing China, and its erroneous words and deeds of interfering in China’s internal affairs, tarnishing China’s image and undermining China’s interests.”