Sec State Blinken Has Long List Of Priorities For China Trip

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in China for a trip designed to dial-down tensions and convey a broad range of concerns related to China's support of Russia, confrontational naval actions in the South China Sea, and industrial overcapacity which US officials believe could undercut US manufacturing. To complicate matters, the US Congress this week passed legislation to aid Taiwan, de facto ban TikTok, and potentially apply secondary sanctions on China-Iran crude oil transactions.

• On China-Russia cooperation, Blinken told reporters in Italy last week: “When it comes to Russia’s defense industrial base, the primary contributor in this moment to that is China.”
• A senior State Department official said ahead of the trip: “Our objective will be to clearly make the case what the implications are of this [Russia] support and why that may in fact not be in China’s interest going forward.”
• The trip comes shortly after President Biden called for steeper tariffs on some Chinese steel and aluminum and directed the USTR to launch a probe into Chinese shipbuilding, leading to concerns of a new trade war.
• To further strain tensions, the US, Japan, and Philippines recently held a first-ever trilateral summit pledging greater military cooperation and laying out a tentative roadmap for Japan to join Pillar II of the AUKUS defensive pact.
• Senate Foreign Relations Chair Ben Cardin (D-MD) said in an interview: “There are so many issues … I would think the hardest thing that the Secretary is going to have to do is establish the priority list.”