China: Blinken Visit Rumors Are an Attempt to Test Beijing’s Reaction, Not Real Reports

China’s government-run Global Times newspaper on Thursday rejected a flurry of reports in American corporate media claiming that Secretary of State Antony Blinken would soon visit Beijing, dismissing them as an attempt by the American government to “test” the Communist Party’s reaction to such a trip.

Unconfirmed reports in February claimed that Blinken had arranged for an official visit to Beijing. Following the discovery of a Chinese balloon floating across the United States that month, which reports later indicated had collected intelligence over sensitive American military sites, Bloomberg News reported that Blinken had canceled the trip. As neither country had ever confirmed the visit, neither country confirmed its cancellation.

The Chinese government, in response to leftist President Joe Biden shooting down the balloon after letting it traverse the continental United States, expressed outrage, insisting the balloon was a “civilian aircraft” and that Biden had reacted “hysterically” by shooting it down. The Communist Party paused most high-level communication with the Biden administration following the balloon incident, beginning a thaw only in May with an invite for climate envoy John Kerry to discuss environmental policies in the near term. Accepting a visit from Blinken, America’s top diplomat, would significantly improve the current status of communication between the two countries.

Voice of America, NBC News, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and other outlets began reporting on Wednesday and Thursday that anonymous American sources expected Blinken to visit China “in the coming weeks” for the trip he had allegedly planned in February. Bloomberg claimed that Blinken may meet with genocidal communist dictator Xi Jinping personally while in the nation’s capital. Voice of America noted that lower-level State Department officials held talks with Chinese counterparts in China this week, but the State Department did not offer any clarity regarding a future visit by Blinken.

Initially, in response to the reports, the Chinese Foreign Ministry refused to comment. Asked about Blinken on Wednesday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, “I have nothing to share on that.” Responding to a second question about diplomacy with America, Wang claimed Beijing and Washington shared only “necessary” information and blamed the United States for the deterioration in talks, insisting America was “harming China’s interests” and bore full responsibility for any lack of dialogue. Wang did not mention a potential Blinken visit during the Ministry’s regular press conference on Thursday.

The Global Times, as it typically does, relayed the stance of the Chinese Communist Party in a less measured way than the Foreign Ministry. Citing its regime-approved “experts,” the publication speculated that the reports in American media were an attempt by the Biden administration to “test China’s reaction to Blinken’s potential visit through media hype” and to portray Washington as more conciliatory than Beijing. The Biden administration, it claimed, was both “eager to cooperate with China the way it wants to” and “eager” to appear friendly to the international community.

In an editorial, the Global Times staff called a Blinken visit “not a bad thing” and vowed not to oppose it but insisted Blinken would have to accept the Communist Party’s “list of U.S. wrongdoings that must stop” and “create a positive atmosphere and demonstrate sufficient sincerity and goodwill.” One specific demand from the staff was for America to cut all ties to the democratic and friendly government of Taiwan, a sovereign state China falsely claims as a province.

On Thursday, the Global Times again condemned America, this time for remarks from American Ambassador to Beijing Nicholas Burns condemning the communist country for its role in producing fentanyl, a dangerous opiate causing mass death in the United States. The newspaper called America “ungrateful” for China’s alleged efforts to stop the spread of the drug, condemning sanctions on Chinese companies that make fentanyl ingredients.

“Burns’ remarks and the recent interactions between China and the US highlighted the duplicity and self-contradiction of the US policy toward China,” the state outlet proclaimed, citing its “experts.”

Blinken’s last high-profile encounter with Chinese diplomats – a meeting with former foreign minister and current senior Politburo member Wang Yi – occurred in Germany in February and reportedly featured Wang lecturing Blinken about Biden’s “absurd and hysterical” response to the spy balloon. The two were in the country for the Munich Security Conference.

Blinken, in turn, “condemned the incursion of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] surveillance balloon and stressed it must never happen again.”

“He stated, candidly stated, our disappointment that in this recent period that our Chinese military counterparts had refused to pick up the phone. We think that’s unfortunate. And that is not the way that our two sides ought to be conducting business,” an unnamed senior State Department official said at the time.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.