July 26, 2023

China and the US continue to maintain the momentum of high-level engagement, with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo unveiling plans to visit China "later this summer," media reported, following successive visits by high-level US officials to Beijing. However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken continued to slander China's image during his latest trip to the Pacific, even as he emphasized the importance of managing US-China relations in a responsible way, which reflects the duplicity of Washington's China policy, experts said. 

Although the resumption of high-level exchanges has helped bring back some cooperation between the two countries in areas such as climate change and possibly counternarcotics, experts said Raimondo's visit could be a "true touchstone" to see if there is any substantial easing of tensions or US officials are merely paying "lip service" to the strained bilateral relations.

Some experts warned that the two countries are now at a critical stage of managing their differences, as there are huge challenges to be faced if bilateral ties are to be prevented from spiraling down given that the US could take unfriendly and even dangerous moves to damage relations, especially when competition is still the mainstay the US' China policy. Domestic factors including the dominance of the Republicans in US Congress and upcoming campaign season are seen as the biggest stumbling blocks to the Biden administration's flexibility in its China policy. 

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