WASHINGTON--The United States on Wednesday played down expectations of any breakthrough from the first trip by a U.S. Secretary of State to China in five years, after a tense call with China's foreign minister ahead Antony Blinken's visit to Beijing next week. Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang urged the United States to stop meddling in its affairs and harming its security in a call with Blinken on Wednesday, and said it should respect China's core concerns to arrest declining relations between the superpowers, China's foreign ministry said. Having postponed a February trip after a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over U.S. airspace, Blinken is set to become the highest ranking U.S. government official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021. U.S. officials said Blinken would push to establish open communication channels to ensure competition with the Chinese does not spiral into conflict. "We're not going to Beijing with the intent of having some sort of breakthrough or transformation in the way that we deal with one another," Daniel Kritenbrink, the State Department's top diplomat for East Asia, told reporters in a briefing call. "We're coming to Beijing with a realistic, confident approach and a sincere desire to manage our competition in the most responsible way possible," he said. Kritenbrink said he expected Blinken would "reiterate America's abiding interest in the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait" and also discuss the situation in Ukraine. Blinken's long-delayed visit is aimed at stabilizing relations between the world's two largest economies and strategic rivals. Ties have deteriorated across the board and raised concerns they might one day clash militarily over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own. The two sides are also at odds over trade, U.S. efforts to hold back China's semiconductor industry and human rights issues. Chinese state media said Blinken would visit on June 18 and 19. Kritenbrink said Blinken would hold a series of meetings with senior Chinese officials. The two sides did not say which officials Blinken would meet. Asked at a regular briefing it he would meet President Xi Jinping, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said: "I won't speak to any potential meetings, other than to say we'll have announcements about who he will be meeting with and when over the next few days." Sources familiar with the planning said Blinken had been expected to meet Xi on the cancelled February trip.
