. A US official said the State Department is eyeing February 6 for Blinken’s meetings in Beijing, which follow up on President Joe Biden’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bali late last year. “On China, as you know, President Biden, President Xi had a very open, candid conversation during the last G20 meeting in Bali, and they spoke about our intentions,” Blinken said at a press conference in Washington, DC, last week.
“I will have an opportunity to travel to China in the coming weeks to follow up on the President’s discussions precisely to move forward on those lines of communication between us,” he said. The top-level meetings come amid continued strained relations between Beijing and Washington. Tensions dramatically escalated following former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year.
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