U.S., China Seek To Calm Turbulent, Tension-Filled Ties

After months of acrimony, accusations of espionage and warnings against meddling in each other’s domestic affairs, the US and China this week will attempt to find a way to reopen talks on divisive issues including nuclear warfare, climate change, and fentanyl, Tracy Wilkinson, Stephanie Yang and David Shen reported for LA Times.

Photo Insert: US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Beijing on Sunday, June 18, in the first high-level contact in China in five years.

US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Beijing on Sunday, June 18, in the first high-level contact in China in five years.

Blinken is making a trip that was scrubbed in early February after the US detected — and shot down — what it described as a Chinese spy balloon flying over US territory. In addition to the conflict over Taiwan, the US maintains punitive trade tariffs on key Chinese exports and is demanding cooperation on control of Chinese production and marketing of the deadly drug fentanyl.

The US also wants China to back away from support for Russia in its war on Ukraine, and is alarmed by the diplomatic and economic inroads China is making around the world, especially in Africa and Latin America, where Chinese espionage installations in Cuba spying on the US grabbed headlines this month.

Blinken said his two-day mission to Beijing “is an important but, in a sense, insufficient step because there’s a lot of work to be done.” Moreover, China expects the US to stay out of the South China Sea and stop criticizing Xi Jinping, whom critics describe as being “as charismatic as a brick wall.”

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