(Alliance News) - Antony Blinken is expected to be the first US Secretary of State to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in five years in Beijing, during the first visit to China by a Biden administration cabinet secretary, according to the Financial Times
The two-day visit begins on Sunday, with several sources close to planning the event telling the FT the top US diplomat will meet Xi.
Blinken is visiting China after US President Joe Biden and Xi agreed in Bali in November to cooperate on stabilising their bilateral relationship.
The US Secretary of State is also expected to meet top Chinese foreign policy official Wang Yi, the FT said, alongside foreign minister and former Chinese ambassador to the US Qin Gang.
The FT said it marks a "new phase of stepped-up engagement" between the two countries, after further complications to diplomatic relations arising from the Covid-19 pandemic.
"If President Xi Jinping decides to meet with secretary Blinken it will 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," said Dennis Wilder, who previously was the top White House Asia adviser to former President George W Bush.
"President Xi, since the end of his disastrous 'zero-Covid' policy, is clearly on a charm offensive designed, in part, to convince US businesses not to move their supply chains away from China."
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is also set to visit China later this year, after meeting Chinese Vice Premier and top economic official Liu He in Zurich last month.
By Greg Rosenvinge, Alliance News reporter
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