China-U.S. Dialogue Increases as Middle East Tensions Rise | CPT PPP Coverage

A long-anticipated visit from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi kicked off in Washington on Thursday, highlighting growing communications between the U.S. and China despite simultaneously escalating global tensions from conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed Wang at the State Department on Thursday afternoon. Blinken told the United Nations this week that he would work with Wang to prevent the conflict in the Middle East from spreading. Wang, for his part, struck a similarly cooperative tone at the outset of the meeting.

“China and the United States need to have dialogue. Not only should we resume dialogue, the dialogue should be in-depth and comprehensive so that with the dialogue we can increase understanding, reduce misunderstanding and misjudgement and constantly seek to expand common ground and pursue cooperation that will benefit both sides so that we can stabilize China-U.S. relations and return it to the track of healthy, stable and sustainable development,” Wang said through a translator.

Both the U.S. and China have flexed their influence in the conflict between Israel and Hamas with a common goal of not sparking a wider-ranging war, which would imperil interests for both countries. But while the U.S. has publicly stood with Israel, China has called for a cease-fire between Israel and the Western-designated terrorist group Hamas stationed in Gaza.

“I have no doubt that part of this discussion, the agenda, will be about what is going on in the Middle East, getting the Chinese perspective and certainly looking for ways to encourage them to be helpful,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday.

Kirby added that China is “able to have conversations in some places like Tehran that we aren’t.”

“I think it’d be irresponsible if we didn’t try to explore this issue with them and see what their thoughts and perspectives are,” he said.

Wang is expected to meet President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, on Friday and speak with Biden during his visit. The meeting also paves the way for an expected meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in November during the summit of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries in San Francisco.

The meeting comes shortly after California Gov. Gavin Newsom met with Xi – the first meeting between a U.S. governor and Xi in six years.

Newsom told CNN that the fact that he was allowed to meet with the country’s top leader was “indicative of a thawing.”

“We’ve got to turn down the heat. We’ve got to manage our strategic differences. We’ve got to reconcile our strategic red lines,” he said.

While more routes of communication may be opening, China-U.S. relations shouldn’t be mistaken as entirely pleasant at the moment. The meeting also comes one day after China called the U.S. the “biggest disrupter of regional peace and stability” in the world in a response to a report from the Pentagon on China’s growing military assets.

“The U.S. has sent depleted uranium munitions and cluster bombs to Ukraine, sent its carrier battle groups to the Mediterranean and weapons and munitions to Israel, is this the so-called ‘gospel’ the ’human rights defender is bringing to the area?” said Wu Qian, the spokesperson for China’s defense ministry.

The Pentagon report found that China is building up its nuclear weapon arsenal faster than projections anticipated. With regard to the long-standing concern that Beijing would move militarily against independent Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province, the report said China is “almost certainly” taking lessons from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to know how a conflict there would take shape.