The Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit Washington this week, marking a significant step towards a potential meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
As reported by NBC News, Wang’s visit, scheduled from Thursday to Saturday, aims to discuss the possibility of a Biden-Xi meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco next month.
The last time the two leaders met was in November at a Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, and haven’t spoken since. The Biden administration has yet to announce a meeting between Biden and Wang.
The visit is seen as a reciprocal move following Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing in June. It comes as the Biden administration’s focus shifts to the Middle East and the risk of escalation in the Israel-Hamas war through Iranian proxies in the region.
Over the summer, a series of senior officials from the Biden administration visited Beijing in an attempt to improve relations, including Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
Despite these efforts, relations between the two largest economies have soured over issues like trade, technology, human rights, Taiwan’s status, and China’s stance on the war in Ukraine, reaching what Beijing describes as their lowest point since 1979.
China has shown interest in a Biden-Xi meeting but is pressing for concessions like the easing of U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors and other strategically important technologies.
The U.S. diplomatic outreach to China coincides with a period of internal upheaval within the Chinese administration, marked by numerous personnel changes. Wang, 70, is the first senior Chinese official to travel to Washington since Commerce Minister Wang Wentao’s visit in late May.
The State Department stated last month that Antony Blinken was expected to host Wang in Washington before the year-end and that Biden hoped to meet with Xi “sometime later this fall.”
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