Antony Blinken meets with Vice President Han Zheng on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (File)
Washington:
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with the Chinese vice president on Monday, the latest top-level dialogue between the rival powers in days.
The State Department said on its public calendar that Blinken will meet Vice President Han Zheng in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
The talks come as the United States watches with growing intrigue over Beijing’s personnel changes. Qin Gang, handpicked by President Xi Jinping as foreign minister, was abruptly replaced in July by veteran policymaker Wang Yi.
U.S. officials initially expected Wang to travel to the annual U.N. meeting, where he might have briefly met with President Joe Biden, but China said the relatively lesser-known Han would attend instead.
But Wang, who is also the Communist Party’s foreign policy director, held talks with Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, in Malta this weekend.
The United States says it is keen to maintain open lines of communication with China to manage frequent tensions between the world’s two largest economies.
Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen both traveled to Beijing this year, resuming contact that was all but severed during the pandemic.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
