U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing on Sunday and Monday, a visit that had been called off in February after a Chinese weather balloon veered off course and was spotted over U.S. airspace.

While Blinken is in Beijing, the two sides will raise issues of bilateral concern, discuss global and regional matters, and the Chinese side will also expound on its position and concerns on China-U.S. relations and "resolutely safeguard its own interests," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Friday.

Wang's remarks corresponded to those of Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State. Miller also said that Blinken will meet senior officials to discuss the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the relationship, and will also discuss potential cooperation on shared transnational challenges.

Blinken's visit will be the latest high-level exchange between the two sides in recent weeks amid a U.S. push for re-engagement. Experts believe that the visit could put bilateral relations on a better footing after months of acrimony and also shows that the two sides are open to maintaining channels of communication so as to reduce risks of miscalculation and avoid fiercer confrontation.

"The willingness for dialogue and communication has always existed between China and the U.S. We both hope to avoid strategic miscalculation, ease conflicts, and stabilize relations through dialogue," said Yuan Zheng, deputy director of the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 

He added that though bilateral relations further plummeted due to the balloon incident in February, there have been signs of a thaw in relations in recent months, with more high-level engagement between the two powers.

Frequent recent high-level engagement

In May, Wang Yi, director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan held what both sides described as "candid, substantive and constructive discussions" on the Taiwan question, Ukraine crisis and the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, over the course of two days in Vienna. 

Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao also held talks with his U.S. counterpart Gina Raimondo in May, and later met U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai in Detroit. 

And earlier this month, Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant U.S. secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Sarah Beran, the National Security Council's senior director for China affairs, visited Beijing and held "candid, constructive and productive" communication on improving bilateral relations.

But China did decline a face-to-face meeting with Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin when he and Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu attended the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier this month. The Chinese delegation responded by saying that Austin had "made several false accusations" in his remarks and that the U.S. side can't "put up a posture of suppression then ask China for dialogue."

In addition, the U.S. has not lifted sanctions against Li that were put in place in 2018. Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng has articulated China's position by saying, "It surely is not the right way to seek dialogue and cooperation while putting the others on the sanctions list." 

'China, U.S. different, but they can cooperate'

Since the China-U.S. trade war erupted five years ago, relations have deteriorated and distrust has mounted. More and more friction in the political and economic arenas has emerged, especially on thorny issues like technology curbs, the Taiwan question, military communication and the Ukraine crisis.

On Wednesday, in a phone call with Blinken, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang said the root of responsibility for new difficulties and challenges in the relationship since the start of the year was "clear." He added that Beijing had always followed the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation in handling relations with Washington.

In April, in disregard of China's firm opposition, U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with the Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen. And then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last August. China had strongly condemned the move, saying it gravely violated the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-U.S. joint communiques, and severely undermined China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

China then took countermeasures, including military exercises around Taiwan island, sanctions against several U.S. organizations and personnel, and suspensions of cooperation in areas like military dialogues, climate change and counter-narcotics cooperation, which aim to show that the Taiwan question concerns China's core interests and is the cornerstone of China-U.S. relations.

As the U.S. now sees China as a strong competitor, the country has rolled out a series of measures to contain China's development, especially in the technology industry. In March, the U.S. reached a consensus with Japan and the Netherlands to curb the export to China of chips and the advanced tools used to make them. The rules will take effect in July and the U.S. believes that it will make it harder for China to advance in AI as well as 5G.

China has raised supply chain concerns, saying the global semiconductor industry and supply chains are shaped by the market, and any move to politicize and weaponize tech issues will destabilize the global industrial and supply chains and no one will benefit from it. However, industry analysts believe that Washington's curbs will force China to bolster its investment in technology innovation and that China will find a way to build its own.

The two sides have also traded accusations on the Ukraine crisis, with the U.S. warning China not to send weapons to Russia, and China accusing the U.S. of "pouring oil on the flames" by sending weapons and other military aid to Ukraine, which China believes is not helpful to achieving a political settlement to the conflict.

Amid the acrimony and antagonism, a dialogue between China and the U.S. is desired by both sides to prevent the armed conflict, according to Joseph Gerson, an American peace and disarmament activist and director of the Peace and Economic Security Program of the American Friends Service Committee.

He told CGTN in a recent interview that the Biden administration is pursuing maximization of U.S. influence across the Indo-Pacific area, and that he hopes that wise heads will be able to contain the competition. He added that Americans need to understand that "even as we have differences, it's important that both sides treat one another with the respect that they deserve." 

Similarly, the Chinese defense minister pointed out that though China and the U.S. have different systems, the differences shouldn't hinder the two countries deepening cooperation based on common interests.

Jin Canrong, a professor at the School of International Relations, Renmin University of China, told CGTN that Blinken's visit is a good thing. He said that the Biden administration has used the "three Cs" to define relations with China, namely "competition, confrontation and cooperation," but now it's more about competition, while confrontation is mounting and cooperation is decreasing.

"So at this time, I think it's especially necessary to maintain high-level communication to avoid confrontation," Jin said, adding that he looks forwards to the results of the visit and expects more communication between the two sides to promote a stable China-U.S. relationship in the future.