Ukraine will be one of the subjects of Blinken’s visit to China

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s upcoming trip to Beijing does not mean the United States is heading for any significant changes in its relationship with the People’s Republic of China, US analysts say.
This weekend, Blinken will be the first US foreign minister to visit Beijing since 2018.
Meanwhile, officials from both countries are preparing for another face-to-face meeting between their leaders this year, a US official told media on condition of anonymity.
However, there is little hope that Blinken’s meetings with senior PRC leaders will produce meaningful results or lead to a reset of the fragile relationship between the two countries.
“I don’t think there should be high hopes for meaningful breakthroughs as a result of this journey,” said Jude Blanchett, Freeman Chair in Sinology expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
“On the other hand, I don’t think that’s a bad thing, given how badly relations have deteriorated over the past five years,” Blanchett told reporters in a telephone media briefing on Monday. evening.
Speaking at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics in January, Blinken said open lines of communication could serve as a safety net in US-China relations amid rising tensions, adding that their temperature had cooled since former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August. 2022. of the year.
February 24 marks one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine . The United States said it made very clear to China the consequences of military and material assistance in the war with Russia against Ukraine.
Last week, the US Treasury Department sanctioned a Chinese company, the Tianyi Institute of Space Science and Technology (Changsha), also known as Spacety China, for providing satellite imagery of Ukraine to the company. private military linked to the Kremlin, Wagner.
The Luxembourg subsidiary Spacety China also fell under the sanctions.
US officials and China experts have said Russia’s war in Ukraine will be discussed at Blinken meetings in Beijing.
“The debate over China’s policy toward Russia and Ukraine in China is one of the most heated topics I encountered during my time there,” said Scott Kennedy, senior adviser to the Department of Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who spent a month and a half in China last fall.
“Many Chinese experts believe that China made a strategic mistake,” he added.
But in public, Chinese officials stick to Beijing’s position and narrative.
“It was the United States that triggered the Ukrainian crisis and that is the main contributing factor,” said Mao Ning, spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry.