Blinken to meet with top Chinese diplomat on sidelines of ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting

 
INA-sources
 
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to meet with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Thursday – the latest in a series of increased high-level interactions between Washington and Beijing.
 
Wang Yi, who is the top foreign policy chief for the Chinese Communist Party, is attending the diplomatic gathering in place of China’s Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, who is unable to attend due to health reasons, Reuters reported, citing a spokesman for his ministry.
 
Their meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta comes less than a month after the two met in Beijing, holding what the top US diplomat called a “candid and constructive” conversation.
 
Efforts to stabilize the relationship between the world’s two biggest economies have intensified in recent months following a period of immense friction between the United States and China.
 
The Biden administration feels that the US and China are “getting back to normal in the sense of pace of diplomacy,” a senior administration official told CNN this week.
 
Following Blinken’s trip to Beijing in mid-June, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen traveled to the Chinese capital last week, and Climate Envoy John Kerry is due to travel there in the coming days.
 
Source: CNN