While the United States focuses its efforts on supporting Ukraine and preventing the Middle East conflict from spreading throughout the region, Beijing is raising the temperature in the China Sea.
This is the background music that analysts hear at the meeting held in the US capital by Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Thursday and yesterday.
On this visit, three days in total, there was also a meeting with President Joe Biden. The US president urged “a responsible relationship” and “keeping the lines of communication open.”
One of the relevant issues consisted of negotiating the terms for Presidents Biden and Xi Jinping to meet next month in San Francisco, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. “A large part of this potential meeting is for them to sit down and talk about strategic intentions,” explained an official source.
After shaking hands with Blinken, the head of Chinese diplomacy pointed out that there are disagreements and different visions between the United States and China. He stressed, however, that both countries truly need to not only continue the dialogue, but deepen it to avoid any misunderstanding and stabilize relations.
Next to the host, the guest stressed that the two countries share important common interests and challenges that they must resolve by working together.
“Therefore, China and the United States must dialogue and do so in a more comprehensive manner,” Wang insisted.
“It will be the way to return to a path of sustainable, healthy and stable development,” he reiterated. “I totally agree with the Foreign Minister,” said Blinken, who had previously stated that the US seeks “constructive conversations” and open channels from military to military.
In recent months, various senior US officials have visited China, including Blinken himself, who traveled in June after canceling his trip in February due to the crisis of the Chinese spy balloons that the US shot down in its territory.
However, the dynamics of the Hamas-Israel conflict pose a fresh challenge that tests the relationship. Washington is hoping that Beijing can use its influence with Iran to prevent an escalation that would lead to an expanded war in the region.
The Biden Government's priority has been to prevent intense economic competition between the two large economies (his Administration recently prohibited US funds from investing in China in technological sectors, such as AI), as well as trade deals and putting under control issues as delicate as Taiwan or the China Sea. But they have found common territory in which they can work together, such as the fight against climate change, although they do not expect immediate progress.
Although Americans have been frustrated by China's equidistance in the Ukraine war, a position that has been de facto support for Russia and Vladimir Putin, everything indicates that the two countries share a similar interest in aborting a broad war in the Middle East. China, with one of the largest buyers of oil, could exert considerable influence over Iran and its containment as the hand that pulls the strings of groups such as Hamas.
“The Chinese government certainly has an interest in preventing a direct confrontation between the Americans and the Iranians because this could increase the price of oil,” Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for International Strategic Studies (CSIS), told Reuters. .
“The Middle East has come up in all the conversations and we have asked China to adopt a more constructive approach and a commitment to urge calm from Iran,” US sources said. “China has connections in the area,” they added, “but its public comments focus only in one particular direction.
