Hopes grow for Xi, Biden meeting

US President Joe Biden said he hopes to meet President Xi Jinping within the next few months and suggested China's leaders were not aware of details surrounding an alleged spy balloon the United States shot down in February.

"China has some legitimate difficulties unrelated to the United States," Biden said. "I think one of the things that balloon caused was not so much that it got shot down. But I don't think that the leadership knew where it was or knew what was in it and knew what was going on."

He added: "I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional."

Biden said he hopes to again meet Xi after their lengthy and strikingly cordial meeting in November on the sidelines of a Group of 20 summit in Bali, where they agreed on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit.

"I'm hoping that, over the next several months, I'll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have but also how there's areas we can get along," he said.

Blinken's original trip was postponed after the uproar over the balloon, which crossed the US from west to east before being shot down by a fighter jet off the South Carolina coast.

Analysts expect Blinken's visit will pave the way for more bilateral meetings between Washington and Beijing in coming months, including possible trips by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

It could also set the stage for meetings between Xi and Biden at multilateral summits later in the year.

While Xi and Biden's Bali meeting briefly eased fear of a new Cold War, the flight of the balloon a few months later escalated tension, and high-level communication since then has been rare.

The two leaders are likely to attend the next G20 summit, in September in New Delhi, and Xi is invited to travel to San Francisco in November when the United States hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

During his stay through today, Blinken is also expected to meet with China's top diplomat Wang Yi and possibly Xi.

Blinken began meetings in Beijing yesterday, the first top American diplomat to visit China in five years. He is the highest-ranking US government official to visit China since Biden took office in January 2021.

Foreign minister Qin Gang greeted Blinken and his group at the door to a villa in the grounds of Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guest House, rather than inside the building as is customary.

The two made small talk as they walked in, Qin asking Blinken in English about his long trip from Washington. They then shook hands in front of Chinese and American flags.

After heading into a meeting room, neither Blinken nor Qin made comments in front of reporters who were briefly allowed in. Their meeting lasted five-and-a-half hours, a State Department spokesperson said, before they moved to the working dinner.

Assistant foreign minister Hua Chunying, who was attending the meeting, tweeted above a picture of Qin and Blinken shaking hands: "Hope this meeting can help steer China-US relations back to what the two presidents agreed upon in Bali."

US officials have been playing down the prospect of a major breakthrough during the trip, but said Blinken's primary goal was to establish open and durable communication channels to ensure strategic rivalry between the two countries does not spiral into conflict.

Danny Russel, the top diplomat on East Asia during Barack Obama's second term, doubted Blinken's brief trip would resolve fundamental differences. "But his visit may well restart badly needed face-to-face dialogue and send a signal that both countries are moving from angry rhetoric at the press podium to sober discussions behind closed doors."

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