US-China pledge to improve on deteriorating ties

Chinese President Xi Jinping said he is pleased with the outcome of Blinken’s earlier meetings. Pic/AP

The United States and China have pledged to stabilize their badly deteriorated ties during a critical visit to Beijing by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

It remains to be seen whether the two countries can resolve their most important disagreements, many of which have international financial, security and stability implications.

Apart from a willingness to talk, there was little sign that either were few indications is prepared to bend from hardened positions on issues ranging from trade, to Taiwan, to human rights conditions in China and Hong Kong, to Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea, to Russia's war in Ukraine.

At the meeting with Blinken, Xi pronounced himself pleased with the outcome of Blinken's earlier meetings with two top Chinese diplomats, and said the two countries had agreed to resume a program of understandings that he and President Joe Biden agreed to at a meeting in Bali last year.

New Chinese premier starts 1st trip abroad

German's Frank-Walter Steinmeier with Li Qiang. Pic/AP

Chinese Premier Li Qiang has started a visit to Germany and France that comes as Europe seeks to balance concerns over economic dependence on China and about its stance toward Ukraine and Taiwan with a desire to engage Beijing on issues such as climate change.

Li, on his first trip abroad since taking office, was received by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday. Li and a large delegation of Chinese ministers meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and their German counterparts on Tuesday, the seventh such gathering. The visit comes as Europe and Germany consider how best to handle an increasingly assertive China.

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