Monday was supposed to be a day of modest hope in the U.S.-China relationship. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was going to be in Beijing, meeting with President Xi Jinping in a high-stakes bid to ease ever-rising tensions between the world's two largest economies.
Instead, Blinken was spending the day in Washington after abruptly cancelling his visit late last week as the U.S. and China exchanged angry words about a suspected Chinese spy balloon the U.S. shot down. As fraught as the US-China relationship had been ahead of Blinken's planned trip, it's even worse now and there's little hope for it improving anytime soon.
White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby noted Monday that Blinken's trip was delayed, not cancelled. But prospects for rescheduling remain uncertain. The administration will be "starting at a serious deficit," Russel said. "This is a setback but it's not impossible to see a return. Absent mismanagement, this is recoverable."
Diplomatic channels remain open, but for several years they have been dominated by disagreements rather than grounds for potential cooperation and they are now crowded by complaints from both sides over the balloon. Meanwhile in Beijing, after initially taking a relatively conciliatory response to the balloon, Chinese leaders have adopted a much tougher position likely in response to nationalistic public reaction. After apologizing for the balloon, which it said was a weather craft that mistakenly strayed into U.S. airspace, China now condemns the downing as an unacceptable violation of international law and standards that has set back the potential for dialogue.
Tensions between the U.S. and China, notably over Taiwan, have been a source of deep concern for Washington and many of its allies. They worry that overt conflict will crater the global economy and their concerns were exacerbated last year with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, on which China has largely sided with the Russians.
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