U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and China’s top diplomat Wang Yi are expected to attend a security conference in Munich this weekend, their first chance to meet since the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon into U.S. airspace.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Monday she was aware of reports of a possible meeting in Munich, Germany, “but I have nothing to announce today.”
“As Secretary Blinken has always said, as he has said to Wang Yi, as we have all said to China, we are open to dialogue as long as it is in our interest and we think the terms are right,” she said .
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday there were no current plans for Blinken to meet any Chinese officials in Munich, but he did not explicitly rule that out and said the U.S. was “always evaluating diplomatic options.”
The U.S. secretary of state usually attends the annual meeting, and Price did not explicitly confirm that Blinken would go to the annual summit. He said, “We will have the opportunity to discuss Blinken’s potential travel with the secretary of state at a later date.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin confirmed that Wang Yi attended the meeting, but made no mention of a possible meeting with Blinken.
US-China Tensions: Blinken canceled a planned trip to Beijing in early February because of the presence of surveillance balloons in U.S. airspace.
Blinken said he called Wang Tong on the day the trip was delayed — the day before the balloon was shot down — to inform him of the delay and to tell him that the presence of the balloon was a “clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and International Law”, “This is an irresponsible act and China’s decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions we are prepared to have. “
After the surveillance balloon was shot down, there were some conversations between U.S. and Chinese officials. Both China’s foreign ministry and the Chinese embassy in Washington made “stern representations” to U.S. officials, with U.S. National Security Council spokesman Adrian Watson saying Beijing was “scrambling to do damage control instead of actually addressing their intrusion into our airspace.” question”.