US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to visit China on Sunday as Beijing and Washington attempt to move forward with rapprochement after a particularly tense year.
Blinken was originally slated to visit China in February but his trip was delayed after the United States shot down a so-called “Chinese spy balloon” found flying over US territory and said to be gathering intelligence on domestic military sites.
Blinken is the most senior US official to visit China since 2019 and the first secretary of state since Mike Pompeo’s trip in 2018 amid then-President Donald Trump’s trade war with Beijing. Blinken is expected to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang or top diplomat Wang Yi.
It is unclear if he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping as Pompeo did in June 2018, but it would be noteworthy as Xi is due to meet Microsoft founder Bill Gates in Beijing on Friday.
The main focus of Blinken’s trip will be re-establishing “communication channels” to “address misperceptions and prevent miscalculation”, while also ensuring that competition between the rival superpowers does not devolve into “conflict”, according to Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
Last month, a Chinese fighter jet nearly collided with a US surveillance plane flying over international air space in the South China Sea, with the US Pacific Command claiming that the Chinese pilot had manoeuvred in an “unnecessarily aggressive manner”.
The incident was just the latest between the two powers whose relationship soured under the Trump administration and has remained so under President Joe Biden.
Washington and Beijing may now be ready for a thaw, said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who described Blinken’s trip as the “first stage of an exploratory process” by the two sides to see whether they can improve their relationship.
“Neither President Biden nor President Xi benefits from a perception of runaway escalation in US-China relations. At the same time, neither want to be seen as softening their approach toward the other,” Hass told Al Jazeera.
“This is the space that both sides will be exploring during the visit. Is it possible to chart a path forward for the relationship that manages competition and maintains open channels of communication? We simply don’t yet know,” Hass said.
“But this is why there are diplomats. To probe, test, explore non-hostile ways for managing hard challenges. Time will tell,” he said.
The visit follows recent engagements including a call between Blinken and Foreign Minister Qin and a meeting between top US and Chinese officials in Beijing. In May, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Vienna for “candid talks”.
Beijing, however, rejected a meeting between US and Chinese military officials at the Shangri-La security forum in Singapore last month apparently due to Biden declining to lift sanctions on China’s Minister of Defence Li Shangfu, that have been in place since 2018.
Qinduo Xu, a former journalist and a senior fellow at the Pangoal Institution, a governance-focused think tank in Beijing, said the two sides may also be testing the waters for a possible meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Biden later this year at the 2023 APEC Summit in the US.
“Beijing would say there is little they can get from meeting Blinken, but that being said I think people are still looking at any possibility or any chance they may stabilise the relationship,” Xu said.
“Yes, it is bad, but if we can do something to prevent it from getting worse that would be acceptable at least for Beijing,” he said.
There are still many sticking points, however.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that China was planning to build a new spy base in Cuba, just 145 kilometres (90 miles) from the US mainland – although US officials pushed back on the story, describing it as an “ongoing issue”.
Blinken will also likely bring up issues including Americans detained in China and the illegal flow of fentanyl from China to the US, which other diplomats have raised in recent meetings.
For its part, Beijing will be keen to discuss US tariffs on Chinese goods and sanctions on high-ranking officials, as well as the growing number of Chinese companies either banned from doing business with the US or placed on the US Department of Commerce’s trade-restricting “Entity List”.
Beijing and Washington have also accused each other of confrontational behaviour in the South and East China Seas, and Taiwan Strait, and of increasing the risk that “strategic competition” between the US and China could turn into a collision, Xu said.
In the meantime, they will have to work through low levels of mutual trust, said Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization.
Foreign Minister Qin has insisted the US respect “China’s sovereignty, security, and developmental interests”, while also urging the US to cease interfering in China’s interests “under the pretext of competition”, Mok said.
And, owing to “recent American economic coercion and escalatory provocations towards China, expectations for the visit remain modest”, he said.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
VANCOUVER – An incumbent BC United legislative member has reversed her decision not to seek re-election and has announced she’ll run as an Independent in the riding of West Vancouver-Capilano in the upcoming British Columbia election.
Karin Kirkpatrick has been a vocal critic of BC United Leader Kevin Falcon’s decision last month to suspend the party’s campaign and throw support behind the B.C. Conservatives under John Rustad.
Kirkpatrick announced her retirement this year, but said Monday that her decision to re-enter the race comes as a direct result of Falcon’s actions, which would force middle-of-the-road voters to “swing to the left” to the NDP or to move further right to the Conservatives.
“I did hear from a lot of constituents and a lot of people who were emailing me from across B.C. … that they didn’t have anybody to vote for,” she said. “And so, I looked even at myself, and I looked at my riding, and I said, ‘Well, I no longer have anybody to vote for in my own riding.’ It was clearly an issue of this missing middle for the more moderate voter.”
She said voters who reached out “don’t want to vote for an NDP government but felt deeply uncomfortable” supporting the provincial Conservatives, citing Rustad’s tolerance of what she calls “extreme views and conspiracy theorists.”
Kirkpatrick joins four other incumbent Opposition MLAs running as Independents, including Peace River South’s Mike Bernier, Peace River North’s Dan Davies, Prince George-Cariboo’s Coralee Oakes and Tom Shypitka in Kootenay-Rockies.
“To be honest, we talk just about every day,” Kirkpatrick said about her fellow BC United incumbents now running as Independents. “We’re all feeling the same way. We all need to kind of hold each other up and make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
She added that a number of first-time candidates formerly on the BC United ticket are contacting the group of incumbents running for election, and the group is working together “as good moderates who respect each other and lift each other up.”
But Kirkpatrick said it’s also too early to talk about the future of BC United or the possibility of forming a new party.
“The first thing we need to do is to get these Independent MLAs elected into the legislature,” she said, noting a strong group could play a power-broker role if a minority government is elected. “Once we’re there then we’re all going to come together and we’re going to figure out, is there something left in BC United, BC Liberals that we can resurrect, or do we need to start a new party that’s in the centre?”
She said there’s a big gap left in the political spectrum in the province.
“So, we just have to do it in a mindful way, to make sure it’s representing the broadest base of people in B.C.”
Among the supporters at Kirkpatrick’s announcement Monday was former longtime MLA Ralph Sultan, who held West Vancouver-Capilano for almost two decades before retiring in 2020.
The Metro Vancouver riding has been a stronghold for the BC Liberals — the former BC United — since its formation in 1991, with more than half of the votes going to the centre-right party in every contest.
However, Kirkpatrick’s winning margin of 53.6 per cent to the NDP’s 30.1 per cent and the Green’s 15.4 per cent in the 2020 election shows a rising trend for left-leaning voters in the district.
Mike McDonald, chief strategy officer with Kirk and Co. Consulting, and a former campaign director for the BC Liberals and chief of staff under former Premier Christy Clark, said Independent candidates historically face an uphill battle and the biggest impact may be splitting votes in areas where the NDP could emerge victorious.
“It really comes down to, if the NDP are in a position to get 33 per cent of the vote, they might have a chance of winning,” McDonald said of the impact of an Independent vote-split with the Conservatives in certain ridings.
He said B.C. history shows it’s very hard for an Independent to win an election and has been done only a handful of times.
“So, the odds do not favour Independents winning the seats unless there is a very unique combination of circumstances, and more likely that they play a role as a spoiler, frankly.”
The B.C. Conservatives list West Vancouver School District Trustee Lynne Block as its candidate in West Vancouver-Capilano, while the BC NDP is represented by health care professional Sara Eftekhar.
Kirkpatrick said she is confident that her re-entry to the race will not result in a vote split that allows the NDP to win the seat because the party has always had a poor showing in the riding.
“So, even if there is competition between myself and the Conservative candidate, it is highly unlikely that anything would swing over to the NDP here. And I believe that I have the ability to actually attract those NDP voters to me, as well as the Conservatives and Liberals who are feeling just lost right now.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Egypt on Tuesday for his 10th trip to the Middle East since the war in Gaza began nearly a year ago, this one aimed partly at refining a proposal to present to Israel and Hamas for a cease-fire deal and release of hostages.
Unlike in recent mediating missions, America’s top diplomat this time is traveling without optimistic projections from the Biden administration of an expected breakthrough in the troubled negotiations.
Also unlike the earlier missions, Blinken has no public plans to go to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this trip. The Israeli leader’s fiery public statements — like his declaration that Israel would accept only “total victory” when Blinken was in the region in June — and some other unbudgeable demands have complicated earlier diplomacy.
Blinken is going to Egypt for talks Wednesday with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and others, in a trip billed as focused both on American-Egyptian relations and Gaza consultations with Egypt.
The tamped-down public approach follows months in which President Joe Biden and his officials publicly talked up an agreement to end the war in Gaza as being just within reach, hoping to build pressure on Netanyahu’s far-right government and Hamas to seal a deal.
The Biden administration now says it is working with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar to come up with a revised final proposal to try to at least get Israel and Hamas into a six-week cease-fire that would free some of the hostages held by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Americans believe public attention on details of the talks now would only hurt that effort.
American, Qatari and Egyptian officials still are consulting “about what that proposal will contain, and …. we’re trying to see that it’s a proposal that can get the parties to an ultimate agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday.
The State Department pointed to Egypt’s important role in Gaza peace efforts in announcing last week that the Biden administration planned to give the country its full $1.3 billion in military aid, overriding congressional requirements that the U.S. hold back some of the funding if Egypt fails to show adequate progress on human rights. Blinken told Congress that Egypt has made progress on human rights, including in freeing political prisoners.
Blinken’s trip comes amid the risk of a full-on new front in the Middle East, with Israel threatening increasing military action against the Hezbollah militant organization in Lebanon. Biden envoy Amos Hochstein was in Israel on Monday to try to calm tensions after a stop in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has one of the strongest militaries in the Middle East, and like Hamas and smaller groups in Syria and Iraq it is allied with Iran.
Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged strikes across Israel’s northern border with Lebanon since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas started the war in Gaza. Hezbollah says it will ease those strikes — which have uprooted tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border — only when there’s a cease-fire in Gaza.
Hochstein told Netanyahu and other Israeli officials that intensifying the conflict with Hezbollah would not help get Israelis back in their homes, according to a U.S. official. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, said Hochstein stressed to Netanyahu that he risked sparking a broad and protracted regional conflict if he moved forward with a full-scale war in Lebanon.
Hochstein also underscored to Israeli officials that the Biden administration remained committed to finding a diplomatic solution to the tensions on Israel’s northern border in conjunction with a Gaza deal or on its own, the official said.
Netanyahu told Hochstein that it would “not be possible to return our residents without a fundamental change in the security situation in the north.” The prime minister said Israel “appreciates and respects” U.S. support but “will do what is necessary to maintain its security and return the residents of the north to their homes safely.”
Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, meanwhile, warned in his meeting with Hochstein that “the only way left to ensure the return of Israel’s northern communities to their homes will be via military action,” his office said.
In Gaza, the U.S. says Israel and Hamas have agreed to a deal in principle and that the biggest obstacles now include a disagreement on details of the hostage and prisoner swap and control over a buffer zone on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Netanyahu has demanded in recent weeks that the Israeli military be allowed to keep a presence in the Philadelphi corridor. Egypt and Hamas have rejected that demand.
The Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people. Militants also abducted 250 people and are still holding around 100 hostages. About a third of the remaining hostages are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, said Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its count. The war has caused widespread destruction, displaced a majority of Gaza’s people and created a humanitarian crisis.
Netanyahu says he is working to bring home the hostages. His critics accuse him of slow-rolling a deal because it could bring down his hardline coalition government, which includes members opposed to a truce with the Palestinians.
Asked earlier this month if Netanyahu was doing enough for a cease-fire deal, Biden said, simply, “no.” But he added that he still believed a deal was close.
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Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report.
