China’s top diplomat will visit the United States for two days amid a series of sprawling crises that raise the stakes of a potential subsequent trip by Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping.
“We continue to believe that direct face-to-face diplomacy is the best way to raise challenging issues, address misperception and miscommunication, and explore working with the Chinese where our interests intersect,” a senior administration official said on Monday. “We remain clear-eyed about the challenges, and we're focused on using diplomacy to advance U.S. interests and values and to make concrete progress on priority issues.”
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken will host his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, from Oct. 26 through the 28, a “reciprocal visit” following Blinken’s travel to Beijing in June. Their conversations could help set the table for Xi to travel to California for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, a November forum that could provide a stage for a meeting with President Joe Biden as pressure builds in disputes around the world.
“We've been clear that we're not going to take a step back from [U.S.] interests and values or from securing an enduring competitive advantage amidst the diplomacy,” a second senior administration official said. “We do remain committed to the importance of consistent, clear, and high-level communication. Issues around the world underscored the need for this communication and the importance of it in avoiding conflict."
That danger seems to be growing in the South China Sea, the vast waterways of which form some of the most important shipping lanes in the world. China has claimed sovereignty over most of the region in defiance of international legal rulings. Chinese forces have adopted a truculent approach to prosecuting those claims. Pentagon officials released footage last week showing examples of Chinese military pilots engaged in “reckless maneuvers, or discharged chaff, or shot off flares, or approached too rapidly or too close to U.S. aircraft,” and Chinese Coast Guard vessels collided this weekend with Philippine vessels attempting to deliver supplies to Philippine military personal in the Second Thomas Shoal, one of the disputed areas of the South China Sea.
“We're also deeply concerned regarding China's recent destabilizing and dangerous actions around Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea,” the first senior administration official said. “And I expect that this issue will be discussed between the secretary and Director Wang Yi as well.”
The meetings will come on the heels of a visit from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who is working to implement a landmark deal to acquire nuclear submarine technology and coordinate other cooperation in emerging defense technology sectors. That deal, known as AUKUS, is a key plank in Biden’s effort to rally U.S. allies in Europe and the Indo-Pacific for a multifaceted economic and strategic competition with China.
“There’s a clear emphasis on the importance of allies and partners to U.S. strategy in the region, and Australia is one of the most critical and indispensable of those allies,” Kathryn Paik, a former White House National Security Council director for the Pacific and Southeast Asia, said during a discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think it will also be critical to watch how both countries respond to China’s increasingly aggressive activity in the South China Sea. The U.S. is likely to push Australia to be more vocal and active in this space, as there is real opportunity here to demonstrate a united voice in opposition to these actions.”
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Those tensions have been long in the making, but Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year and the war ignited by the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel in early October have added two combustible issues to the agenda.
“We use diplomacy to clearly and directly address areas of difference not only on bilateral issues but also on a range of regional and global issues that matter to the United States and our allies and partners,” the first senior administration official said. “Of course, these issues include the South and East China Seas, cross-strait issues, the Middle East, Russia's war in Ukraine, North Korea's provocations, and many others.”