Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing this Sunday morning June 18. Four months after a trip postponed due to the affair of a Chinese spy balloon, the American secretary of state wants to ease the tense relations between the two countries. He is the first senior US diplomat to visit China in five years. A visit without real hopes of concrete breakthroughs.
The acronym “American Secretary of State” on the door of the plane which has just opened, then Antony Blinken who comes down from the gangplank waving his hand to the delegation that has come to welcome him on the tarmac, including the ambassador of the United States in China Nicholas Burns and Yang Tao, the director general of North American and Oceanian Affairs at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. These images shot this Sunday morning at Beijing airport are in themselves an event, explains our correspondent in Beijing, Stephane Lagarde.
But no red carpet at the bottom of the plane’s walkway. Washington had to take out the oars to co-organize this visit which, according to the terms of the press release of the ministry Chinese Foreign Affairs, is not an invitation, but a “arrangement between the two parties”.
From the case of the chinese spy balloon shot down over the United States, relations have cooled to say the least between the two countries. Intense diplomatic negotiations and concessions: the American side had to slow down on the sanctions and the revelations concerning Chinese espionage in particular.
The telephone conversation intended to prepare for this official trip between Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterpart Qin Gang, revealed significant differences, say Chinese state media for which “the United States should not have the illusion of dealing with China from a position of strength”. It is undiplomatic language that we heard two years ago, when the first two powers reported their disagreements in Anchorage.
On the Chinese side, for the moment, no comment. Antony Blinken met Wang Yi last March at the Munich Security Conference. He is expected to see the director of the central foreign affairs office as well as Qin Gang, the Chinese foreign minister, by Monday.
Basically, it is first and foremost an American decision to show off, to move to Beijing. This is the first for several years. One could think of a thaw with this type of visit, but in reality, it is not so much the points of tension, so much the interdependencies and the frictions, are important and almost on all fields: commercial, technological , innovation, cyber, space, military and diplomatic. There is truly a turning point in the Sino-American relationship, it is the coming to power of Donald Trump, his administration and a kind of setting aside modesty in the American state apparatus. We have an American administration which is going to rear up more, and in mirror, the Chinese posture is also much more coercive, much more aggressive. First and foremost in its regional environment, and there we see the tensions at sea, we see the tensions in the direction of Taiwan, showing a hard line against the United States, a line that will not budge and that will try by all the means to coalesce around it anti-American fronts.
Emmanuel Véron, specialist in contemporary China and international relations at Inalco
reassure the world
Antony Blinken knows it, the instability of the Sino-American relationship makes the rest of the world nervous, reports our correspondent in New York Carrie Nooten. The two largest economic powers have opposing views on human rights, trade in technology or the sale of arms to Taiwan. China considers the passage of American ships in the strait or the visits of American officials to the island as provocations. ” Without progress on Taiwan, this visit will be useless “, said the editorialist of the GlobalTimes -newspaper affiliated with People’s Daily- two days ago.
Another source of tension is Ukraine and Beijing’s support for Moscow, not to mention the China Seas.
Therefore, the American Secretary of State wants to take advantage of his official visit to put in place crisis management mechanisms. China’s neighbors South Korea And Japan in the lead, are particularly worried that Beijing has cut military communications channels. Washington knows that Beijing is in a phase of affirmation, of tough stance, and does not expect any real progress.
The objective is therefore to renew the dialogue and pave the way for other bilateral meetings and a possible new meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden at a multilateral summit in the coming months.
Will the repression of the Uyghurs be mentioned?
Human rights defenders hope Joe Biden will speak about the crackdown on the Turkish and Muslim minority in Uyghursas Sophie Richardson, China expert with the NGO Human Rights, explains at the microphone of Heike Schmidt of RFI’s international service.
” We expect Secretary of State Blinken, whose administration was the first to speak of genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs, to confirm to his Chinese interlocutors the administration’s intention Biden to continue his investigations into atrocities committed by the Chinese government. We believe this is the key to ending this crisis and preventing further massive abuses. Admittedly, his agenda will be busy, there are many trade disputes and also the question of Taiwan. But, we have had long discussions with the Biden administration to tell them that it is difficult to imagine cooperation, in any area, with a government that organizes the arbitrary detention of a million people on the basis of of their ethnic identity, and who, moreover, think they can do so with complete impunity. If you look at international law, the Chinese authorities have committed the worst crimes against these communities. »