Antony Blinken, the British Foreign Minister, meets with China’s Foreign Minister in Beijing to try and restart relations

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang at the Chinese Embassy in Beijing. The meeting was part of an anticipated mission to restart relations between the two countries, which were strained after a rumored Chinese spy balloon was seen flying over North America.

Blinken’s visit to China is the first by a secretary of state since 2018. It reflects Beijing’s Covid-19 restrictions, but also how US and China ties are at their lowest levels in decades.

On Sunday, the top US diplomat started two days of meetings. It was not clear if he will meet President Xi Jinping.

Blinken spent five and a quarter hours with Qin and invited him to Washington for further discussions, according to the US State Department.

Matthew Miller, spokesperson for the State Department, said that the secretary stressed the importance of maintaining open channels of communications across a wide range of issues in order to reduce the risks of misperceptions and miscalculations.

Qin reiterated that Beijing is committed to a stable, predictable relationship between both governments. He also said Taiwan was Beijing’s core interest and the greatest risk for China-US relations.

The US is worried about China’s military activities around Taiwan, and its refusal of condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Beijing accuses Washington that it is trying to contain Washington’s ambitions by imposing controls on exports of advanced technology and expanding security arrangements with regional partners.

The relationship hit its lowest point after the alleged Chinese spy ball flew over sensitive military sites, before it was shot down by the US in February.

Blinken’s visit is intended to follow a November meeting between President Joe Biden in Bali and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, where the leaders agreed to establish a “floor”. The plan fell apart in February, when Blinken canceled a trip from China due to the balloon.

In the last month, signs of improvement have appeared. In May, it was reported that CIA Director Bill Burns visited China secretly. Jake Sullivan, the US national security advisor, met Wang Yi in Vienna, China’s highest-ranking foreign policy official. Biden said, at the G7 meeting in Hiroshima Japan, he was expecting an imminent “thaw”.

A senior US official stated that relations are now “in a position where we can go forward with the Bali Agenda”.

The official said that Blinken had “very clear eyes” and that it would be difficult to make progress.

This trip is not a detente, but a reconnection. Evan Medeiros is a China specialist at Georgetown University. He said that it was important to find a way to stabilize the relationship and stop its freefall. Both countries want and need the meeting to go well, but it is too early to speak of success.

Daniel Kritenbrink is the top official of the State Department for East Asia. He said Blinken has three goals. One was to create communication channels that would ensure the competition “doesn’t veer towards conflict”.

Dennis Wilder said that the visit will end a “deep acrimony”, but it won’t do much to address the “fundamental mistrust”.

He said that the Chinese were still angry about Secretary Blinken postponing his visit to China earlier this year, and by his warnings made to Beijing during the Munich Security Conference in February [about possible Chinese lethal assistance to Russia]. Wilder said Xi declining to meet Blinken, whom he had been scheduled to see in February, would be a “strong signal” that Beijing remained concerned by US steps to “de-risk” its economy from China’s, including restraining the latter’s advanced technology development.

Blinken’s trip will only be considered successful if he meets Xi. It would be a “snub”, he said, to see only Qin or Wang who are not as powerful in the US as the secretary-of-state.

Although US officials claimed that enough time had passed after the balloon incident for high-level meetings to resume, the issue still hangs over their relationship.

reported earlier that China did not want to allow Blinken’s visit because they were worried that the FBI might release the findings of their investigation into the weather balloon. China says that it is a weather-observation vessel. In a letter this week, 19 Republican Senators cited the story and urged Biden to not succumb to Chinese attempts to “coerce US into silence”. They also urged him to release FBI findings “immediately”.

Raja Krishnamoorthi is the top Democrat in the House China Committee. He said he reviewed FBI material related to the balloon.

“They [China] call it a weather ballon. . . “It’s not a good look,” he said.

Biden responded that Xi was unaware of the balloon’s purpose when asked on Saturday if it could ease tensions. Biden stated that the balloon was “more embarrassing than intentional”. He added that he hoped “to meet Xi over the next few months”.

Mike Gallagher is the Republican chairman of the House China Committee. He said the President’s remarks were “naive” and “misleading”.

He said: “We can’t afford to dismiss the recent Chinese Communist Party violations of our sovereignty and their increasing aggression as an accident.”

Analysts have suggested that China might want to take a “tactical break” from tensions in order to fix its struggling economy. The economy is still recovering after the Covid controls.

Investor sentiment has also been hurt by US export restrictions and Chinese efforts to tighten up anti-espionage legislation and crackdown on foreign consulting.

China’s Foreign Ministry warned those who hoped for a rapid thaw. It accused Washington of “damaging China’s interests” by claiming that it was always seeking “communication”.

Gallagher has also criticised the Biden administration in Washington for its “zombie engagement” with Beijing. He told CNBC this week that bringing olive branches to China to encourage engagement is an “invitation for aggression”.

Krishnamoorthi said that high-level meetings would help stabilize relations, and Beijing needed to be told clearly how aggressive behavior can “trigger an escalation.”

“Mike might like zombie movies . . . “It’s important to have these discussions, to do our best to listen and be clear at the same. Then we should try to find ways of discouraging aggression,” he added.