Qin Gang News

Antony Blinken will meet top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Thursday as officials gather in Indonesia for ASEAN meetings, the State Department said in announcing the latest in series of interactions between the rival superpowers. Wang is representing China at the Jakarta meetings involving the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and partner countries after Beijing said Foreign Minister Qin Gang would not attend due to health reasons. Blinken met Qin and Wang in Beijing last month, marking the first visit to China by a U.S. secretary of state in five years. It was aimed at bringing stability to intense rivalry between the superpowers, which are also the world's two largest economies U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visited China earlier this month and climate envoy John Kerry is to visit next week. Wang, who is the foreign policy chief for the Chinese Communist Party, ranks above Qin, who as the foreign minister is the government's foreign policy chief.

climate change and debt distress. She reiterated that Washington was not seeking to decouple from China's economy, adding doing so would be "disastrous for both countries and destabilizing for the world." But she said the United States wanted to see an "open, free and fair economy," not one that forces countries to take sides. She said she used the discussions to raise "serious concerns" about what she called China's "unfair economic practices" and the recent uptick in coercive actions against the US firms.

Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang's prolonged absence from public view for 12 days has raised concerns and speculation about his well-being. Qin was scheduled to meet with the European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, this month, but China unexpectedly postponed the meeting without providing further information. There have been rumors in Brussels that Qin's absence might be due to health issues, but Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin stated that he had not heard about such reports during a press briefing in Beijing. The official website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry indicates that Qin's last official engagement was on June 25, where he met officials from Sri Lanka, Russia, and Vietnam. On the same day, he also participated in an event alongside Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley. Additionally, a lunch meeting between Qin and ambassadors from the European Union in late June was abruptly canceled, according to an ambassador based in Beijing who was on the invite list.

Also read: US warns citizens to reconsider their travel plans to China: ‘May be detained…’ The Treasury issued a statement acknowledging Yellen's support for "ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the US-China bilateral relationship". Both sides characterized the discussion as frank and productive in their official statements.

BEIJING — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday he failed to revive military-to-military talks with China, despite earlier hopes of reopening that communication channel.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang and top diplomat Wang Yi in Beijing on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to cool U.S.-China tensions that have overshadowed geopolitics in recent months.

China's new ambassador to the U.S. arrived in New York Tuesday with a call to «safeguard the interests of China,» according to a release from the country's embassy in the U.S.