Top US and Chinese diplomats to meet on sidelines of G20 this week
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi have scheduled an in-person discussion in Bali
- Expected topics include Beijing’s continued tacit support for Moscow and the invasion of Ukraine
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Indonesia this week to explore ways to “responsibly” manage the two countries’ rivalry and seek areas of cooperation, US officials said on Tuesday, amid soaring tensions on a number of fronts.
The meeting is to take place on the sidelines of a G20 foreign ministers’ meeting on Thursday and Friday on the Indonesian island of Bali, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
In a brief statement, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said the two diplomats would “exchange views on the current state of US-China relations as well as major international and regional issues”.
Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told reporters that Washington’s goal was to “manage responsibly the intense competition between the United States and the PRC”.
“So I would expect that, in the course of that meeting, we’ll be able to discuss having guardrails – so to speak – on the relationship so that our competition does not spill over into miscalculation or confrontation,” he said.
In addition, Blinken would likely raise areas of potential cooperation between the two powers, Kritenbrink said, including the climate crisis, global health and stemming the transnational flow of narcotics.
