US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Fareed Zakaria that the US is attempting to strengthen lines of communication with China to avoid conflict between the two superpowers. Blinken who was speaking on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado made a highly anticipated trip to China last month. The two global powers have been increasingly at loggerheads over a host of issues ranging from Beijings close ties with Moscow to American efforts to limit the sale of advanced technologies to China. On the Ukraine front Blinken said that Russia has already lost the war in terms of what Russia sought to achieve and what Vladimir Putin seeks to achieve. He predicted the war which recently surpassed the days would continue for several months. However he predicted that the aid military equipment and training that Ukraine is receiving from various countries would continue. Unlike the Russians Ukrainians are fighting for their future for their freedom for their country Blinken added. The proof will be in the results. Now these are early days. Now we are. We have different groups that are engaged or about to engage on discrete issues that are problems in the relationship where I believe we can I think get to a resolution Blinken says. The test for us is whether we can manage our way through that to make sure that we sustain these lines of. communication that we continue to talk and that we work on as I said both dealing with the differences and seeing if we can cooperate the secretary said. It is a political decision in effect for China to decide whether or not he should be engaging with him. China rejected a meeting between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Shangfu during a security forum in Singapore earlier this year although the two did speak briefly. Weve made very clear that we think its a responsibility to have these militarytomilitary contacts to have this dialogue especially to avoid any miscalculations any misperceptions of what were each doing. So well see where China comes out on this. The objective was to erase Ukraine from the map to eliminate its independence its sovereignty to subsume it into Russia. That failed a long time ago and that would continue a very hard time for the next few months. The US Secretary of. State is the first secretary of state to travel to the country in five years and the most senior US official to make such a mission since President Joe Biden took office in . His visit was followed by similar trips by other highlevel Biden administration officials including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US climate envoy John Kerry. It was reported that one of the key issues that did not get resolved during Blinken’s trip was the restoration of military tomilitary communications between US and China. Earlier this year a Chinese surveillance balloon that was detected floating across the US and hovering over sensitive military sites before ultimately being shot down by an American fighter plane sent relations plunging to a new low and resulted in Blinken scrapping an earlier Beijing visit. The Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu continues to be under US sanction dating back to over the purchase of Russian weapons by Chinas Equipment Development Department which Li was in charge of at the time.
Blinken says US is ‘working to put some stability’ into relationship with China. U.S. and China have been at odds for years over trade and other issues. Blinken: US is working to put ‘stability’
