US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's China visit could pave the way for a Xi-Biden meeting and a thaw in trade ties, with Beijing and Washington signalling mutual commitment to continued high-level engagement, analysts said.
Amid strains over tariffs, tech restrictions and military activities in the Indo-Pacific, Blinken's long-awaited trip to China, the highest-level engagement between the United States and China since presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden met in Bali last year, was recognised by both sides as candid, in-depth and constructive.
Analysts noted the positive exchanges during Blinken's visit raised hopes for a meeting between Xi and Biden during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in November, but more work was needed to make the talks happen.
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Lu Xiang, an expert on US-China relations at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said Xi's meeting with Blinken could be interpreted as both countries having reached a "tacit agreement" for Xi and Biden to meet at Apec in San Francisco.
"I think the two sides may have reached an internal consensus for the two leaders to have a smooth and constructive meeting in November. And there may be even an official visit to the United States by President Xi," he said.
"If the two sides can make breakthroughs on specific issues during the next four months, then we can have more optimism about China-US relations."
Pang Zhongying, an international relations professor at Sichuan University, said Blinken's visit, as well as the meeting between China's top diplomat Wang Yi and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Austria last month, were both partly about making preparations for the leaders to meet at the Apec summit in November.
"From the perspective of diplomacy, if [Chinese Foreign Minister] Qin Gang paid a visit to the US before the summit, hopefully in autumn, the chance of Xi and Biden meeting will be significantly higher," Pang said.
"Xi's attendance [at Apec] would show China is very serious about promoting healthy relations between the two countries. If he is absent, it will indicate bilateral relations have gone off the rails," Pang said.
Blinken met top Chinese officials during his two-day trip to Beijing, including a last-minute meeting with Xi, and spent more than 10 hours in separate discussions with top diplomat Wang and Foreign Minister Qin.
Both sides agreed to advance consultations through joint working groups to resolve "specific issues" in their relations, including a group to address the international trafficking of fentanyl - a key item on Blinken's agenda after the US announced sanctions last month against Chinese companies for shipping chemicals to make the drug.
But they did not achieve any breakthroughs on human rights, the detention of US citizens or restoration of a military communication channel between the two sides, which has been suspended since former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit to Taiwan in August.
Zhu Feng, an international affairs professor specialising in US-China relations at Nanjing University, called the dialogues during Blinken's visit "the most constructive" since the Xi-Biden meeting last year, indicating a commitment from both sides to continue high-level dialogues.
"Both sides are generally satisfied with the resumption of high-level dialogues and contacts," he said, but added that what was most important was not resuming dialogues, but whether there could be a dialogue mechanism and channels for the two sides to communicate and resolve major concerns.
Yun Sun, director of the China programme at the Washington-based Stimson Centre, said the Blinken trip itself was "progress", which had been postponed since the balloon incident in February.
She said his visit opened the door for future communications, but she did not expect immediate breakthroughs, especially on "structural challenges" such as tech competition and Taiwan.
"This visit starts possibilities for discussion down the road, but I don't think we should expect concrete major deliverables at this point," she said. "None of the problems between the US and China affords [an] easy quick fix."
The US has ramped up tech restrictions against China, including lobbying its allies in limiting semiconductor exports - a key element for Beijing's military development - to the country.
Military tensions have also increased, with a Chinese warship accused of an "unsafe" close encounter with an American destroyer earlier this month and Washington continuing arms sales to Taiwan, the self-ruled island claimed by Beijing.
But the need for improved crisis communications and military-to-military channels, which Blinken raised repeatedly during the trip, made no progress. "China has not agreed to move forward with that," Blinken said before he wrapped up his trip on Monday evening.
He said the US did not seek to "decouple" from China but would need to safeguard its own interests by not providing technology to Beijing "that could be used against us".
On Taiwan, Blinken said he reaffirmed that the US was committed to its "one-China" policy and did not support Taiwan's independence, but would stick to its pledge to Taipei under the Taiwan Relations Act to make sure the island had the ability to defend itself.
Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor specialising in US-China relations at the National University of Singapore, said the basic US and Chinese positions continued to diverge on these issues, and there was "still some distance to go before any major changes".
He said resuming dialogues was "a start", but "talking alone does not guarantee that relations will improve".
"Wang Yi's readout blamed the US for current Washington-Beijing tensions. Xi's public remarks to Blinken suggest that he expects that the US side will work harder to repair ties. That, of course, leaves Beijing off the hook," he said.
Wang, who is Xi's top foreign policy adviser, urged the United States to "reflect deeply" and manage differences with Beijing, while attributing the worsening ties to Washington's "erroneous perception" of China.
He asked the US to lift its "illegal and unilateral" sanctions and stop technology containment against Beijing, while stressing China will not compromise on Taiwan, "the core of its core interest".
Xi, in his meeting with Blinken, urged Washington to adopt a "rational and pragmatic attitude" when dealing with Beijing and to put their positive statements into action and work towards stabilising and improving US-China ties.
Lu of CASS said Beijing used the meetings to convey its "strategic clarity" to the US, including on Taiwan, and the "specific issues" China referred to could point to their trade disputes, which he expected could soon yield progress compared to other unresolved issues.
Blinken said more senior US officials could visit China in the coming weeks.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo are widely expected to travel to China soon. Commerce officials from the two countries have started to re-engage recently as the US reviews whether to keep Trump-era tariffs imposed on a large number of Chinese goods.
But Taiwan would remain a thorny issue that requires better understanding from both sides, Lu said.
"Both sides have expressed enough [about their stances] on Taiwan. China has already said what should be said ... it needs the US to show a kind of restraint in its actions."
This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2023. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
