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Recent US diplomacy push aimed at China meant to soften blow of coming hi-tech export limits: analysts
- Asean meeting between Antony Blinken and Wang Yi latest in Biden administration effort to prevent looming ‘restrictions being deeply misunderstood’
- Soon-to-be-affected products relate to AI, quantum computing and semiconductor chips tied to China’s defence industrial base
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Diplomatic outreach to Beijing by US President Joe Biden’s administration over the past week reflects the US leader’s wish to ease fallout from additional restrictions on hi-tech exports to China expected soon, according to two analysts in Washington.
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Chinese foreign policy chief Wang Yi met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday on the sidelines of an annual gathering of Asean foreign ministers in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, the second meeting between the top diplomats in less than a month.
The meeting forms “part of ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication to clarify US interests across a wide range of issues”, according to US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who said “the two sides agreed to maintain open channels of communication in the weeks and months ahead”.
Blinken used the meeting “to directly raise concerns shared by the United States and allies and partners regarding PRC actions, and advocate for progress on transnational challenges that affect people in the United States, the PRC, and around the world”, Miller said in a readout, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.
The meeting materialised weeks after the pair met in Beijing during a two-day visit by Blinken, and just hours after Xie Feng, China’s new ambassador to the US, held rare talks at the Pentagon at the invitation of Ely Ratner, US assistant secretary of defence for Indo-Pacific security affairs. Ratner stressed the importance of keeping the lines of military communication open.
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In another closely watched meeting that wrapped up recently, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sought to reassure her counterparts in Beijing during her talks there that the Biden administration was trying to keep further restrictions on exports linked as closely as possible to domestic national security concerns and to limit the economic damage they might cause.
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