US Secretary of State visits China in 5 years

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited China on Sunday. It is the first visit the U.S. Secretary of State made since the Joe Biden administration was launched and the first one in five years. Secretary Blinken had a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday and will meet with the Director of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Foreign Affairs Commission Office Wang Yi on Monday. He may also have a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The main topics of discussions were setting ‘guardrails,’ in particular, establishing communication channels, to ease tensions and prevent collisions between the two countries amid the intensifying strategy competition between them.

Whether the latest high-ranking strategic discussions between the two countries will provide momentum in changing the current dynamics between them, which have been continuing for several years, are garnering global attention. As the bilateral tensions have continued to worsen to extreme conflicts, it has reached the point of a potential armed conflict. Blinken’s visit to China, which was initially scheduled in February this year, was delayed as China’s reconnaissance balloon was spotted in North American airspace. It also faced another challenge as the issue of China’s operation of a spying facility was raised recently.

Even if there are big expectations for the latest conversations between the U.S. and China, many believe that they will be unlikely to reach a dramatic breakthrough or a turning point for better relations. China has repeatedly emphasized the ‘protection of its fundamental interests’ even before the meetings, and the U.S. is lowering expectations by saying that these are conversations about managing tensions. The priority of the discussions is to put minimum safeguards in place to prevent intense conflicts from leading to collisions as an extension of the director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s visit to China and a meeting between the two countries’ foreign affairs control towers.

There are numerous points of conflict between the U.S. and China. Many issues that are difficult to find solutions are in place, including tensions surrounding the Taiwan Strait, China’s military support for Russia in the Ukrainian war, and the U.S.’s de-risking strategy to protect its core technologies, such as semiconductors. However, they may have a more proactive attitude toward improving relations through economic exchanges as China is taking a stance to be stricter on the political front but warmer on the economic side.

The conversations between the two countries are unlikely to produce fruits immediately but will provide an opportunity to ease global tensions, which have been worsening. The efforts of the two countries to lower tensions will also affect the tensions between South Korea and China, which have been on the rise recently. Furthermore, the ‘rules of the game’ to be discussed by the U.S. and China to prevent collisions include North Korea’s nuclear issue, one of the biggest concerns in Northeast Asia. South Korea should be precisely aware of the related developments and take swift action. South Korea may not be leading the developments in the period of upheaval, but it shouldn’t fall behind.