Trip by top US envoy is first step ‘to determine if there is sufficient mutual intent to try to moderate the trajectory’ of the bilateral relationship.
The measure of success for US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s highly anticipated visit to China is not whether it produces breakthrough agreements but whether it re-establishes some predictability to the relationship, according to analysts. After months of bilateral acrimony following incidents like a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon detected over American territory – a high-profile setback for relations that derailed Blinken’s planned February visit to Beijing – analysts argue that the coming trip by Washington’s top envoy is more important for testing the future of the relationship than for any substantive discussions that will take place. “The trip is the first step in an exploratory process to determine if there is sufficient mutual intent to try to moderate the trajectory of the relationship,” said Ryan Haas, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. Blinken’s visit affords him an opportunity to reaffirm core American principles amid China’s ascent and “maybe even to do a little better job” at making diplomatic inroads than the administration as a whole has done, said Michael O’Hanlon, also of Brookings. “The trip, in either direct or maybe implicit ways, can help signal that kind of a return to normalcy where our goals are about sort of guiding China back towards a path of peaceful rise and not viewing it as our next enemy,” O’Hanlon added. Blinken is slated to hold meetings with senior Chinese officials on Sunday and Monday. He will be the first US cabinet-level official to visit China since 2019, the first secretary of state since 2018, and the highest-ranking US government official since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. Experts anticipate that Blinken will be granted, per custom, a visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping , though no official announcement has yet been made. Blinken was also expected to meet Xi in February. Part of the reason for Xi’s taking a meeting with Blinken is because Chinese leaders would want the same access granted to them when they visit the US, Haas said.
