Blinken’s long-delayed Beijing trip now in planning for next week

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is planning to travel to Beijing as soon as next week, two people familiar with the scheduling told POLITICO.

The trip — for which the State Department is still finalizing details — will mark the highest-level visit of a U.S. official to China since that of then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2018.

Blinken is on track to arrive in Beijing following his current trip to the Middle East, one of the two people said. Both were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive diplomatic travel.

The Secretary of State is in Saudi Arabia this week for multiple meetings, including a gathering of countries battling the Islamic State terrorist group.

Asked for comment about the China plans, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said we “don’t have any travel to announce for the Secretary.” The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not confirm Blinken’s upcoming China visit. Spokesperson Liu Pengyu said only, “China is open to having dialogue with the United States.”

Blinken can expect sharp criticism from GOP lawmakers for traveling to China in the wake of reports on Thursday that Beijing is in talks with Cuba to establish a foothold there to spy on the United States. Both the U.S and Cuban governments have denied those allegations.

The Biden administration has been working to renew high-level diplomatic and military communication following a near breakdown over the Chinese spy balloon incident in February. Blinken had originally been scheduled to visit China few days later and postponed because of the rancor over the balloon.

One of the goals of a trip to Beijing earlier this week by Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and National Security Council senior director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran “was to make sure the lines of communication remain open and to talk about the potential for future visits, higher-level visits,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said on Tuesday.

Chinese Foreign Ministry officials have publicly rebuffed Biden administration outreach in recent weeks citing everything from U.S. export restrictions on high tech semiconductors, ongoing arms sales to Taiwan and the Biden administration’s rallying G-7 member countries last month to work on “de-risking and diversifying” their economies to rely less on China.

Last month, President Joe Biden predicted a “thaw” in U.S.-China relations. Within days, Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao had flown to the U.S. for meetings with Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai. But Beijing’s denial of a request by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to meet with his counterpart Li Shangfu at the Shangri La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore suggested that bilateral ties remained tenuous.

Nahal Toosi contributed to this report.