Blinken arrives in Beijing with the complicated goal of channeling relations between the US and China

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, arrives in Beijing this Sunday to iron out differences between the two powers, a goal that experts consider complicated, at least in the short term, given the current deterioration of relations. After a year of rising tensions, the question is whether the head of American diplomacy will manage to calm things down and direct bilateral relations, or whether the polarization between Washington and Beijing has reached its limit. point of no return.

The trip was confirmed just hours after the head of US diplomacy spoke by phone with his Chinese counterpart, qin gang. It was the first conversation – at least in public – at such a high level in months, and in it Blinken asked for communication channels to be open, while Qin demanded respect for his country.

Will he meet with Xi?

The difference in the tone of the two diplomats leads experts like Bill Bishop, editor of the specialized platform Sinocism, to conclude that China is not particularly enthusiastic about Blinken’s arrival and may decide to treat it as a low-profile visit. As an example, the cabal circulating about the visit, also this week, of the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates: “What if Chinese President Xi Jinping welcomes Gates but not Blinken?”

“This is not an easy visit. The deterioration of trust is significant and it does not seem likely that he can recover in the short term. “Not only are the differences increasing and the possibility of their constructive channeling is quite weak, but Beijing believes that the elementary consensus is now being called into question,” he points out. Julio Riosdirector of the China Policy Observatory.

The Taiwan question

Among these consensuses, the issue of Taiwan stands out by far, entrenched since in August 2022 the then Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, will visit the island.

Beijing fitted the trip as Slap to which it responded harshly with a series of sanctions, the cancellation of dialogue with Washington on issues of the highest interest – including defense and climate change – and military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait of an intensity unprecedented for years and which have since become regular.

Equally common conflicts, since the Pelosi crisis, on behalf of the island, such as the new anger in Beijing over the meeting that the Taiwanese president held in the US a few months ago with Pelosi’s successor, kevin mccarthy.

“This will be a very tense year in bilateral relations as the January 2024 elections in Taiwan approach. This could endanger Xi’s own participation in the APEC summit in November in the United States,” says Ríos.

Furthermore, he believes that “some gestures could lead one to think that China has decided to postpone a certain time wait in a bilateral relationship for a long time, waiting for what will result in 2024, believing, perhaps illusory, that another relationship is possible with another administration”.

Spy balloons and bases

To the issue of Taiwan we must also add trade issues, cross-sanctions and the American preoccupation with the possibility of economic separation from China.

Blinken arrives in Beijing, moreover, four months later than expected. The downing of an alleged Chinese spy balloon over US territory last February caused a last-minute cancellation of a visit that had been confirmed that same month.

In a similar scenario, in recent days and amid speculation about the possibility of resuming travel in June, an American media reported that China is managing spy base from Cuba, something that Havana and Beijing immediately denied and which Washington said was “inaccurate” information.

For Moritz Rudolf of the Paul Tsai China Center, “the rhetoric between the two countries reveals a huge mutual trust deficit».

“The main obstacles seem to be very difficult to overcome,” says the analyst, who cites “the importance the two countries attach to being a leading power in the world, the dynamics stemming from two completely different political and value systems, and the domestic scenarios of both.”

But precisely for this reason and because “the deterioration of Sino-American relations is very dangerous”, the expert emphasizes that “at this moment every small step of approach is important».