US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits China from April 24-26, 2024. (Photo: AFP/VNA)

Blinken’s visit is the second visit by a senior US official to China within 3 weeks, following Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s visit April 5-9.

Continuous tension

US-China relations have been tense, despite efforts by President Biden and President Xi to effect a détente at their summit in San Francisco last year.

Prior to Blinken's visit, the US Congress on Tuesday passed a foreign aid bill worth 95 billion USD, including 8 billion USD for military support for Taiwan (China) in response to China's growing influence in the Pacific region.

President Biden on Wednesday signed a bill demanding that Chinese company ByteDance divest its interest in the social networking platform TikTok within 9 months, otherwise TikTok will be banned in the US. Earlier, Biden threatened to triple tariffs from 7.5% to 22.5% on steel and aluminum products imported from China, and maintain restrictions on technology exports to China on national security grounds.

The US and its European allies have been stepping up pressure on China for allegedly overproducing steel, electric vehicles, and photovoltaic panels to threaten US and EU manufacturers. The topic was high on the agenda of Secretary Yellen’s visit this month. She did not rule out possible retaliation against China if the overproduction issue is not resolved.

“So it's important that China recognizes the concern and begin to act to address it. But we don't want our industry wiped out in the meantime, so I wouldn't want to take anything off the table,” said Yellen.

China has responded strongly, saying the US is conducting trade protection and its accusation of overproduction by China is groundless.

“The main problem facing the world today is not overproduction of new energy, but an actual serious shortage. China's development of green technologies and products, especially new energy, meets the needs of many countries to respond to the energy crisis and climate change and contributes to the global green and low-carbon transition,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

Difficult dialogue

In all this tension, Secretary Blinken's visit is considered a necessary move to maintain US-China dialogue. Observers say the two visits by senior officials shows that the US sincerely wants to control disagreements and avoid the kind of angry confrontation that occurred at the start of Biden’s term.

During his three-day visit to China, Blinken met with the business community and the leaders of Shanghai before meeting with senior Chinese officials in Beijing. Some important topics were discussed, including bilateral trade tensions, China's concerns about the US’s new foreign aid package, the US’s concerns about Russia-China cooperation, and China's role in reducing tensions in the Middle East.

Blinken said Sino-US relations have improved since last year, but the two countries still have some serious disagreements.

“We have an obligation for our people and, indeed, an obligation for the world to manage the relationship between our two countries responsibly. That is the obligation that we have and one that we take very seriously. And I think the direction from President Biden and President Xi was to continue to build those lines of communication, to sustain, and again, to deal directly with our differences as we also seek to build cooperation," said Blinken.

Observers say the US-China dialogue is unlikely to create a breakthrough in relations, because of their differences. But both countries hope that continuing the dialogue will avoid any sharp confrontation, particularly before the US presidential election in November.