Sec State Blinken To Meet President Xi In China

FT has reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping when he visits China February 5-6.

• Advisor to George W Bush Dennis Wilder says in FT a meeting would "...be another in a series of recent signals from the Chinese leader of a desire to change the tone, if not the substance, of US-China relations."
• Analyst see Blinken's trip as part of a gradual warming of relations between the US and China which may lay the groundwork for Xi to attend the 2023 APEC summit in San Francisco, in November. Xi last visited the United States in 2017.
• Blinken is also scheduled to meet with China's top foreign policy official Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, both of whom Blinken shares a long working relationship with.
• 14 Republican Senators wrote to Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, also headed to China soon, urging them to take "...hold the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) accountable for its human rights violations, unfair trade practices, and increasing aggression in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Anything less would be a concession to our country’s greatest threat.”