PALO ALTO (US), June 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Joe Biden reacted positively after Secretary Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing where he met top Chinese leadership, saying “we’re on the right trail.”
Speaking to reporters after a climate event in California, Biden said Blinken did “a hell of a job” on his trip to the Chinese capital, the first by a US secretary of state since 2018.
“We’re on the right trail here,” the president added.
During Blinken’s visit, the US and China agreed to stabilize their relations and maintain communication lines open to avoid an all-out conflict between the two nations.
Relations between Washington and Beijing had reached an all-time low due to growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait. An intensifying rivalry in the semiconductor industry, an incident where the US shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon and disagreements on Russia’s war in Ukraine have also contributed to the soured relations.
Blinken is the highest-ranking US official to have visited the Chinese capital in five years. He met with China’s president, Xi Jinping, and other senior officials.
In his meeting with Xi, Blinken touched upon all key contentious issues between China and the US.
“We have made progress and we are moving forward,” Blinken told reporters in Beijing, but acknowleged that: “None of this gets resolved with one visit.”
Washington and Beijing are also discussing the release of three US citizens detained in China, Blinken said later in an interview with US broadcaster CBS News.
“I don’t want to get into the details, but we are very actively talking about that,” he said.
The three Americans are David Lin, a pastor that has been imprisoned in China since 2006; Kai Li, who was given a 10-year sentence in 2018 for spying charges; and Mark Swidan, a Texas businessman convicted by a Chinese court in 2019. The US claims all three were wrongfully convicted.
“It (their release) would, regardless of anything else be a very important and positive development and we’re working intensely,” Blinken said. — NNN-AGENCIES
