HOPES FOR PROGRESS
US officials and experts believe that Xi’s foremost priority is to manage headwinds in the Chinese economy and that, at least in the short term, he is looking to avoid flare-ups with the West.
Blinken raised concern with Wang about China’s support for Russia, which has rapidly rebuilt its military base two years into its invasion of Ukraine, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week he will visit China in May.
As he opened the meeting with Wang, Blinken said China and the US should manage the relationship “responsibly” and added: “I hope we make some progress on the issues our presidents agreed” on at the California summit.
The two countries should be as “clear as possible about the areas where we have differences – at the very least to avoid misunderstandings, to avoid miscalculations”, Blinken said.
“That really is a shared responsibility that we have not only for our own people, but for people around the world, given the impact that our relationship has,” he said.
Biden, who recently spoke by telephone with Xi, faces a tough re-election fight in November against his predecessor Donald Trump, who has cast China as an enemy and vowed a hard line.
The Biden administration has highlighted wins achieved by its diplomacy with China including what officials say is the first crackdown in years by Beijing on producers of precursor chemicals to fentanyl, the painkiller behind an addiction epidemic in the United States.
But while open to cooperation, Biden has increased pressure on China beyond Trump in some areas.
In the latest move, the US Congress, with Biden’s support, voted to force the divestment of TikTok from Chinese company ByteDance or risk a ban in the United States.
US officials allege security and privacy concerns over the app, which has taken off among US teenagers.
ByteDance denies the allegations and has insisted it has no intention of selling.
