WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China next week, rescheduling a visit that was canceled in February after a saga over a suspected surveillance balloon, US officials said Friday.
Blinken is expected to arrive in Beijing on June 18, the first trip by a top US diplomat to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in October 2018, US officials said on condition of anonymity.
The State Department has not officially announced his travel. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recently said the United States would announce travel by senior officials “in the near future” without giving details.
Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in Bali in November and agreed to try to stop high tensions from soaring out of control, including by sending Blinken to Beijing.
Blinken abruptly canceled a trip scheduled in early February after the United States said it detected — and later shot down — a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US mainland, drawing fury from US lawmakers and denials by Beijing.
But the two sides have more recently looked again to keep tensions in check including with an extensive, closed-door meeting between Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Vienna last month.
Tensions have risen sharply between the world’s two largest economies in recent years, especially over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims and has not ruled out seizing by force.
The two countries are also at odds over China’s increasingly assertive posture in the region and over trade and human rights.
Biden, however, has looked to limited areas for cooperation with China, such as climate change, in contrast with the more fully adversarial position adopted at the end of the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18
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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18
- First trip by a top US diplomat to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in October 2018
ICE agents to help with security at Winter Olympics
ROME: Agents from the divisive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will help support US security operations for the Winter Olympic Games in Italy next month, a spokesperson told AFP.
“At the Olympics, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is supporting the US Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and host nation to vet and mitigate risks from transnational criminal organizations,” the agency said in a statement.
“All security operations remain under Italian authority.”
It added: “Obviously, ICE does not conduct immigration enforcement operations in foreign countries.”
The potential presence of ICE agents at the February 6-22 Games has sparked huge debate in Italy, following the outcry over the deaths of two civilians during an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Italian authorities initially denied the presence of ICE and then sought to downplay any role, suggesting they would help only in security for the US delegation.
US Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are attending the opening ceremony in Milan on February 6.
On Monday, the president of the northern Lombardy region, which is hosting some of the Olympic events, said their involvement would be limited to monitoring Vance and Rubio.
“It will be only in a defensive role, but I am convinced that nothing will happen,” Attilio Fontana told reporters.
However, his office then issued a statement saying he did not have any information on their presence, but was responding to a hypothetical question.
Thousands of ICE agents have been deployed by President Donald Trump in various US cities to carry out a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Their actions have prompted widespread protests, and the recent killings of US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, on the streets of Minneapolis sparked outrage.
