US Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded his just-concluded regular conference visit to China with a stop at a Beijing record store where he bought albums from Taylor Swift and Chinese rocker Dou Wei in a symbolic sign of the cross-cultural exchange and understanding he promoted over three days.
Music, he said at a Li-Pi store on the way to the airport late Friday, “is the best connector, regardless of geographic location.”
And yet Swift “Midnight” and Dou Wei’s “Black Dream” could just as easily represent seemingly insurmountable differences in the deeply troubled relationship between the world’s two largest economies, for which both sides blame each other publicly and privately.
Blinken and his Chinese interlocutors, including Chinese President Xi Jinping and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, spoke about those differences, although they extolled the benefits of keeping communication channels open to bridge those differences and prevent misunderstandings and miscalculations.
Blinken has been at pains to champion the importance of U.S.-China exchanges at all levels. In ShanghaiHe ate at a famous soup dumpling restaurant, attended a Chinese basketball playoff game and interacted with American and Chinese students at a branch of New York University. In his official meetings with Chinese leaders in Beijing, he has repeatedly spoken of improved relations over the past year.
But he also stressed that the United States has serious and growing concerns about Chinese policies and practices in the local, regional and global arenas. And, he said, the United States will not back down. “America will always defend our core interests and values,” he said.
He clapped several times Chinese overproduction from electric vehicles which threatened to have crippling consequences for American and European automakers and complained that China was not doing enough to stop the production and export of synthetic opioid precursors.
At one point, he explicitly warned that if China did not stop Russian supportRussia’s defense industrial sector, which the Biden administration says has allowed Russia to escalate its attacks on Ukraine and threaten European security, is something the US will act to stop. “I’ve made it clear that if China doesn’t solve this problem, we will,” Blinken told reporters after meeting with Xi Jinping.
Chinese officials were equally blunt, saying that while relations had generally improved since their low point last year over the downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon, they remained tense.
“Both countries should help each other succeed rather than harm each other, seek common ground and maintain differences rather than engage in vicious competition, and respect words with actions, rather than saying one thing and doing the opposite,” Xi told Blinken in his report. – such a veiled accusation of the United States of hypocrisy.
Wang, the foreign minister, said China is fed up with what he sees as U.S. interference in Chinese affairs. human rightsTaiwan and South China Sea and efforts to limit its trade and relations with other countries. “The negative factors in the relationship are still increasing and growing, and the relationship is facing all kinds of disruption,” he said. He urged the US “not to step on China’s red line on issues of China’s sovereignty, security and development interests.”
Or as Yang Tao, director general of North American and Oceania affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, put it, according to the official Xinhua News Agency: “If the United States always views China as its main rival, Sino-US relations will continually deteriorate.” face troubles and many problems.”
Still, Blinken insisted on engagement at all levels. He announced a new agreement to negotiate with China on threats posed by artificial intelligence, but lamented shortage of American students students in China – now fewer than 900, compared with more than 290,000 Chinese in the United States. He said both sides want to increase that number.
“We’re interested in this because if our future leaders – whether in government, whether in business, civil society, climate, technology and other areas – if they can collaborate, if they want to be able to solve big problems, if they want to overcome our differences, they need to know and understand each other’s language, culture, history,” he said. But he added a caveat that the Chinese are likely to interpret as a barb.
“During this visit, I told my Chinese counterparts that if they want to attract more Americans to China, especially students, the best way to do it is to create an environment that allows learning to flourish anywhere—the free and open discussion of ideas. , access to a wide range of information, ease of travel, confidence in the security and privacy of participants,” Blinken said.
These are problems that neither Taylor Swift nor Dou Wei can solve.