Blinken meets with China's Xi Jinping in Beijing in effort to cool tensions

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping connected Monday, arsenic the apical U.S. diplomat wraps up his uncommon two-day sojourn to Beijing amid simmering U.S.-China tensions.

Blinken's gathering with Xi got underway soon aft 4:30 p.m. section clip (4:30 a.m. ET), Chinese authorities media Xinhua reported.

The travel by Blinken makes him the highest-level American authoritative to sojourn China since Joe Biden became U.S. president and the archetypal U.S. caput of State to marque the travel successful astir 5 years. A gathering with Xi had not been confirmed earlier Blinken arrived successful Beijing, and volition apt beryllium seen arsenic a affirmative motion that talks are going well.

It is expected that Blinken's sojourn to China could pave the mode for a November gathering betwixt Biden and Xi. The 2 satellite leaders past met successful idiosyncratic successful Bali, Indonesia, connected the sidelines of a G20 acme late past year.

Earlier, Blinken met apical Chinese diplomat Wang Yi connected Monday, aft "candid, substantive, and constructive talks" with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang connected Sunday.

The gathering was expected to interaction connected a scope of issues, including the value of unfastened lines of communication, Taiwan, the South China Sea and Russia's full-scale penetration of Ukraine.

Blinken "underscored the value of responsibly managing the contention betwixt the United States and the PRC done unfastened channels of connection to guarantee contention does not veer into conflict," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said successful a statement.

The caput besides "reiterated that the United States volition proceed to usage diplomacy to rise areas of interest and basal up for the interests and values of the American people."

Wang stressed that the Blinken sojourn came astatine a captious juncture successful Sino-U.S. relations, in a statement released by the Chinese overseas ministry translated via Google. He said some parties indispensable take betwixt practice and conflict, adding that the difficulties successful the countries' ties are rooted successful the U.S.' "erroneous cognition of China, which leads to incorrect policies towards China."

Wang further urged Washington to springiness up its alleged "China menace theory," to assistance sanctions against Beijing and to nary longer suppress China's technological development.

The State Department did not instantly respond to a petition for remark connected Wang's characterization of the quality of U.S.-China difficulties.