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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi capped two days in Washington on Friday with an hour-long visit with President Biden at the White House, part of an ongoing effort to thaw relations between the two superpowers after a year of anger and distrust from both sides.
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In meetings, U.S. policymakers ticked down the list of frustrations the Biden administration has with Beijing, ranging from China’s role in the global fentanyl trade to its claims over the South China Sea. But they also appealed to the top Chinese diplomat to use his country’s influence over Russian behavior in Ukraine and now its potential sway over Iran in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The two sides emerged without having made breakthroughs, U.S. officials said, and the glimpses of interactions that they made public appeared frosty. But Wang’s visit was itself a positive marker for a relationship that U.S. officials say they have to manage carefully to address irritants between the two nations. Wang’s trip was the highest-level visit to Washington since then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sparked Chinese anger with a visit to Taiwan in August 2022 and since a Chinese spy balloon floated across the United States at the beginning of this year.
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“The United States and China are in an intense competition, and we believe the best way to manage that competition is through equally intense diplomacy,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday. “President Biden has stated multiple times that he hopes to see [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] in the near future.”
Over their more than six hours of talks, Wang and Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid the ground for a possible visit by Xi to San Francisco next month, where leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group will convene for several days of talks. If Xi attends, as is expected, it would be the first visit by Xi to the United States since 2017, and one of only a handful of direct interactions between the two leaders since Biden came to office. The two have not spoken since they met on the sidelines of a gathering in Bali, Indonesia, in November.
Even if the leaders meet, U.S. officials said the talks would mostly focus on managing risk, not making major deals.
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While China has supported Russia following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, Beijing has not thrown the full weight of its defense industry in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a policy that U.S. officials hope to preserve. China also may have some influence over Iran’s decisions about whether to join fully in the Israel-Gaza conflict, a move that could pull U.S. military forces into a regional war that the Biden administration is eager to avoid.
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China has extensive economic ties in the Middle East, and as Blinken crisscrossed the region earlier this month, he called Wang to encourage Beijing to help manage the conflict.
“China obviously has relations in the region, and we think it should be using those connections to call for calm on all sides,” said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks.
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Wang’s visit was a reciprocal exchange following a June visit by Blinken to Beijing. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic efforts, said that the Washington visit was choreographed nearly to the minute to reproduce what happened in China. That trip unlocked several visits by U.S. cabinet officials, a resumption of direct ties following a hiatus that diplomats said was a hindrance to basic risk management between the rivals. Wang also met Friday for three hours with national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
The tensions were on display as recently as this week, when a Chinese fighter jet flew within 10 feet of a U.S. B-52 bomber flying in international airspace over the Pacific, U.S. military officials said Thursday. They said it risked causing a midair collision.
Over the two days of meetings in Washington, the sides did little to promote a sense of camaraderie, with the Americans in particular appearing careful to avoid any flicker of a smile that could be freeze-framed and turned into an attack ad by Republicans accusing the Biden administration of being soft on China during the upcoming presidential campaign.
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On Thursday, as Blinken welcomed Wang to the State Department for a two-hour conversation to be followed by dinner, his quick remarks to the press were so short — 30 words in all, at a moment that diplomats typically use to outline their aims for a meeting — that he took his Chinese counterpart by surprise.
“So brief, huh?” Wang asked.
Friday morning, the sides convened again at the State Department, allowing reporters in briefly for photos — no talking — in which both the American and Chinese delegations appeared to have received memos to be staunch, resolute, and grim-faced.
Standing next to Blinken a day earlier, Wang said that “in China-U.S. relations, from time to time there will be some jarring voices. When it happens, China treats it calmly, because we are of the view what is right and what is wrong is not determined by who has the stronger arm or a louder voice.”
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