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20-06-2023
BEIJING: President Xi Jinping on Monday termed the progress achieved in the US-China talks “very good” as the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken concludes his landmark visit to Beijing on a high note.
The meeting between the two leaders was the final engagement of a rare trip aimed at ensuring disputes between the superpowers do not spiral into conflict.
Blinken, the first holder of his post to meet the Chinese leader since 2018, had earlier strode towards Xi with his hand outstretched at the Great Hall of the People, a venue China often uses for greeting heads of state – positive signals in the choreography of diplomacy.
The two delegations then faced each other across a long conference table bedecked with pink lotus flowers, with Xi at the head and Blinken just to his right.
Their roughly 30-minute meeting could help facilitate a summit between Xi and US President Joe Biden later in the year.
Biden and Xi last met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia in November, pledging more frequent communication, although ties since then have deteriorated over issues ranging from Taiwan to espionage concerns.
“The two sides agreed to follow through the common understandings President Biden and I had reached in Bali. The two sides have also made progress and reached the agreement on some specific issues. This is very good,” Xi said at the start of the meeting in a video posted online by Chinese state television.
During the otherwise closed-door talks, Xi said China “hopes to see a sound and steady China-US relationship” and believes that the two countries “can overcome various difficulties”, according to a readout by China’s state news agency Xinhua.
He also urged the US not to “hurt China’s legitimate rights and interests”.
It was not immediately clear from Xi’s remarks or previous readouts of Blinken’s earlier discussions with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on Monday and foreign minister Qin Gang on Sunday, exactly what progress had been made.
Earlier, Blinken underscored the importance of open communication channels to manage their competition during more than three hours of talks with Wang, which the State Department called “productive”. (Int’l News Desk)
