US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday said that the United States and China had made “progress” toward steering relations back on track as both sides agreed on the need to “stabilize” the bilateral relationship between the two superpowers.
The top US diplomat, speaking after two days of meetings in Beijing with top officials including President Xi Jinping, said that there are key issues between the nations that remain unresolved, but noted that his “hope and expectation is we will have better communications, better engagement going forward.”
Blinken is the first US secretary of state to visit Beijing in five years, and his talks with senior Chinese officials were seen as a key litmus test for whether the two governments could stop relations from continuing to plummet at a time of lingering distrust.
“It was clear coming in that the relationship was at a point of instability,” Blinken said at a news conference in the Chinese capital Monday. “And both sides recognized the need to work to stabilize it.”
“I came to Beijing to strengthen high-level channels of communication, to make clear our positions and intentions in areas of disagreement, and to explore areas where we might work together on our interests, align on shared transnational challenges, and we did all of that,” Blinken said.
“We’re not going to have success on every issue between us on any given day, but in a whole variety of areas, on the terms that we set for this trip, we have made progress and we are moving forward,” he said.
Have a great day!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Source: CNN
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