No meeting planned between Blinken and China’s Wang at G20 -U.S. official

June 23 (Reuters) – No meeting is planned between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at a G20 meeting in Italy next week, a State Department official said Wednesday after the Financial Times reported that Beijing and Washington discussed such a meeting.

Quoting people who were briefed on the talks, the newspaper said US President Joe Biden’s administration had also informed its counterparts in Beijing that it would like Assistant Secretary of State Wendy Sherman to travel to China this summer.

The White House had also had preliminary internal talks about sending Blinken or Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, to China later this year, which could pave the way for Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, a bilateral summit on the sidelines of the G20 to hold a meeting of heads of state or government in Rome in October, the British newspaper reported.

“There is no scheduled meeting between Foreign Minister Blinken and Foreign Minister Wang at the upcoming G20 ministerial meeting,” said a State Department official when asked about the report without commenting on the other details.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian was questioned at a regular press conference on the Financial Times report about a possible meeting between Blinken and Chinese officials at the G20 ministerial meeting and replied, “I cannot offer you any information at this time.”

Bonnie Glaser, an Asia expert with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, quoted by the Financial Times, said she heard from sources that there may be a phone call between Biden and Xi after a Blinken-Wang Yi meeting could and then visit a foreign ministry official in China in the summer.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wang and Blinken haven’t met since she and other officials engaged in a fiery exchange in Alaska during the Biden government’s first high-level meeting with their Chinese counterparts in March.

Blinken made a call with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi earlier this month, highlighting the need for cooperation and transparency on the origins of COVID-19 and addressing other contentious issues including China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Continue reading

US-China relations deteriorated sharply under then-US President Donald Trump, and the Biden administration has maintained its tough approach while emphasizing its interest in working together on areas of common concern such as climate change.

The Biden White House has taken a cautious approach to engaging with China as it has stepped up efforts to get allies and partners to confront Beijing on issues ranging from human rights to unfair economic practices.

Analysts have broadly suggested that the G20 summit in Italy would be a logical place for Biden’s first meeting as president with Xi. In contrast, both Trump and then-President Barack Obama met their Chinese counterparts in person in April of their first term and paid a visit to China later in November.

Frustrated by the poor results of previous governments’ regular dialogue mechanisms with Beijing, officials from the Biden government welcomed engagement with China, but said the meetings would be on a case-by-case basis rather than as part of a formalized structure.

China earlier this month condemned a joint statement by the Washington-led Group of Seven leaders denouncing Beijing as gross interference in the country’s internal affairs over a range of issues. Continue reading

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Christopher Cushing

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