As soon as the circumstances permit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to visit China, his spokeswoman said on Monday.
Blinken was supposed to visit China in the beginning of the year. Days before to his arrival, this was cancelled when the US discovered a Chinese surveillance balloon in its airspace.
Vedant Patel, the deputy spokesperson for the State Department, told reporters at his daily press conference that the ambassador “intends to go” and that he “intends to go as soon as conditions allow and we’re able to get that trip back on the books.” Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to China, visited Qin Gang earlier in the day in Beijing.
We keep open lines of contact with a number of PRC (People’s Republic of China) authorities. That obviously has to do with the specific person and who their proper equivalent was. They had several chances to interact as well, as you are aware, when Secretary Blinken was secretary and Foreign Minister Qin Gang was the ambassador to the United States, he said.
The crucial factor in this situation, according to Patel, is that both nations should keep their lines of communication open.
At her daily news conference, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre informed the media that Blinken would reschedule his trip to China when circumstances permit.
“When we think the timing is appropriate. We expect that US officials will participate in a variety of activities in due course. We’ve spoken about the secretary of the Treasury and the secretary of Commerce going to China at some point when we think the timing is appropriate, she said.
Additionally, we have always demanded dependable lines of communication between the US and the PRC, she said.
Patel told reporters at the State Department that the US strategy for this very complex bilateral relationship has been to keep the lines of communication open with China.
Even after his trip was postponed, the secretary still talked about how important it was to keep the lines of communication open and use them to discuss issues that were crucial to the bilateral relationship, the speaker said.
As the secretary does when he meets with his counterparts, Patel continued, “and the ambassador spoke in his meeting about the areas where our two countries can cooperate, such as addressing the challenge of the climate crisis, such as addressing cooperation when it comes to global health and public health, as well as significant opportunities on food security and other things.”