Secretary of State Antony Blinken received a frosty reception late Saturday as he arrived in Beijing, with virtually no fanfare and no red carpet ceremony as the top U.S. diplomat kicked off a series of high-stakes meetings with his Chinese counterparts.
Instead of the pomp and circumstance that has greeted other top foreign officials during recent trips to Beijing, Mr. Blinken got a muted welcome that symbolized the increasingly tense U.S.-China relationship.
Photos and video posted Sunday to social media appeared to show the top American diplomat being greeted by relatively lower-ranking Chinese diplomats and by U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
That greeting paled in comparison to the lavish red carpet ceremony that French President Emmanuel Macron received when he visited China in April. That difference is partially due to Mr. Macron’s status as a head of state and Mr. Blinken’s position as a chief diplomat, but it also appeared clear Sunday that Beijing intended to send a message to Washington through its minimalist welcome for the secretary of state.
Mr. Blinken is the first top American diplomat to visit China in five years. His visit was originally scheduled for February but was postponed amid outrage in America over a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over the U.S. and reportedly collected intelligence from sensitive military sites.
The U.S. shot down the balloon off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4. Beijing maintains the balloon was on a civilian mission to collect weather data, but the Biden administration has roundly rejected that explanation.
The incident added to U.S.-China tensions that were already on the rise. Mr. Blinken’s visit is intended to try to calm those tensions and keep open direct lines of communication between the world’s top two powers.
After his arrival in Beijing, Mr. Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang for lengthy talks inside Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. The secretary of state also is expected to speak with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, and may meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.
Biden administration officials made no secret of the importance of Mr. Blinken’s visit to the People’s Republic of China.
“Our relationship with the PRC is one of our most complex and consequential. It is important that we maintain communication between our two countries,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said late Saturday.
Chinese officials said they hope the visit can help ease tensions between the two nations, a goal President Biden and Mr. Xi set out when they met in Bali in November.
“Hope this meeting can help steer China-U.S. relations back to what the two presidents agreed upon in Bali,” Hua Chunying, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, tweeted Sunday.
A day earlier, Mr. Biden said he’s open to meeting with Mr. Xi again in the near future.
“I’m hoping that over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there’s areas we can get along,” the president told reporters Saturday.
U.S.-China friction is hottest over the Washington-backed island democracy of Taiwan, which Beijing views as part of sovereign China and has vowed to bring under communist party control using military force if necessary.
Successive U.S. administrations have responded to China’s threats by increasing American naval activity around the Taiwan Strait and rallying other regional democracies against Beijing’s aggression.
U.S. officials have also criticized China’s refusal to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine, and expressed concern over Beijing’s construction of military bases on disputed islands in the South China Sea — let alone Beijing’s crackdown on democratic and economic freedoms in Hong Kong, and genocidal oppression of Uyghur Muslims inside China.
Amid that laundry list of issues, U.S. officials have downplayed the prospects for any major breakthroughs during Mr. Blinken’s time in China.
“We’re not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation in the way that we deal with one another,” Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel J. Kritenbrink told reporters last week.
“We’re coming to Beijing with a realistic, confident approach and a sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible,” Mr. Kritenbrink said.
• Guy Taylor contributed to this report.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.