During the Biden-Xi exchange in November, the two leaders agreed to more regular communications to help reduce the growing risk of conflict between the two countries. The White House hopes Blinken’s upcoming visit will be a step toward building a “floor” under the two countries’ deteriorating relationship and “establishing guardrails” to help reduce the chances of conflict.

The Tough Issues

A wide-ranging set of issues could be on the table for discussion in Beijing. High on the agenda is how to manage differences over the combustible issue of Taiwan. Amid increasingly risky interactions among militaries in the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere in the region, along with the newly announced expanded U.S. military presence in the Philippines, Blinken is likely to urge improvements to U.S.-China crisis communications, not least the restoration of military dialogues and other diplomatic mechanisms suspended by China after then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s August trip to Taipei. 

The war in Ukraine is another source of frictions between Washington and Beijing. China has asserted that it supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and that it did “not want to see” the current situation in Ukraine. However, Beijing has become a key source of exports for Russia, while increasing its imports of Russian oil, gas, fertilizer and strategic metals. Moreover, Chinese officials have repeatedly affirmed the importance of the Sino-Russian “no limits” strategic partnership forged last February, describing it as a “model” for relations between major powers. Yi will reportedly visit Moscow later this month and Xi himself may travel there sometime this spring. Washington would like to see Beijing pivot away from Russia in support of an end to the conflict that acknowledges Russia’s aggression, but there are few signs such a move is in the offing.

Technology and trade remain core areas of bilateral disagreement. During a meeting in Zurich with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He in January, however, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen signaled Washington’s interest in improving communications with China on macroeconomic and financial issues as “important for the functioning of the global economy.” A recent commentary in the People’s Daily — the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper — has urged that the two sides find common ground on the global economy in the interest of global economic recovery.

Low(er)-Hanging Fruit

Issues that historically have offered junctures for U.S.-China coordination may also be on the agenda. China and the United States have already resumed their dialogue on the climate crisis, suspended after the Pelosi visit, with a focus on areas where the two sides see opportunities for collaborative efforts, including low carbon technology and reducing methane emissions. Nuclear weapons proliferation including North Korea’s nuclear program is among the thornier issues in this category. The U.S. State Department has suggested that Blinken will discuss denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, an objective Beijing shares with Washington.

A number of other transnational challenges could prove low-hanging fruit for diplomatic progress between the two sides. These include combatting transnational crimes and counternarcotics, areas on which the two sides have worked productively for years. Dialogues on these issues were suspended by Beijing as part of its  “countermeasures” in response to Pelosi’s August visit and the Biden administration has reportedly been “actively seeking to reengage” China on counternarcotics, including chemical precursors critical to making fentanyl, ahead of Blinken’s visit.

However, even achieving breakthroughs on these goals will be a struggle. China will not welcome other messages Blinken is sure to convey, including U.S. concerns about China’s human rights, particularly with respect to its treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in Xinjiang, and the arrests of the so-called “white paper protesters” who demonstrated against China’s zero-COVID policy. Blinken may also seek to broker the release of jailed Americans designated as “wrongful detainees” by the U.S. State Department. Commenting on the visit, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, suggested that its success would be conditioned on whether the U.S. secretary of state would “… adopt a correct perception of China."

Seeking Stabilization

Both sides have signaled they want to pull back from the intense slide in relations that followed Pelosi’s Taiwan trip. Qin said last month, as he ended his tenure as China’s envoy to the United States, that he had “constructive meetings” with Blinken while stationed in Washington and hoped to continue their “close working relations.” As China deals with a slowing economy and political instability, there have been signs — such as sidelining some of its “wolf-warrior” diplomats — that Beijing wants to take a less confrontational approach to bilateral relations. For Washington’s part, Blinken even going to Beijing demonstrates that the Biden administration is focused on stabilizing the relationship amid many areas of disagreement.

That neither side expects much in the way of breakthroughs from Blinken’s trip to Beijing does not doom it to failure. Still, there is the potential that diplomacy devolves to denunciations, as happened in Anchorage, Alaska during the first high-level talks under the Biden administration in 2021, when both sides retreated to their corners and harangued the other with familiar talking points. Today, frictions between two countries are so high and trust is so low that if the visit goes smoothly, that will itself be taken as a sign of commitment by the two sides to try to better manage bilateral tensions.