Tone and substance

Subtle shifts in the texture of Sino-US ties

The charm offensive by the United States (US) as it seeks to mend relations with China appears to be gathering momentum since President Joe ☐ California, in November last year.The official readouts of that meeting Biden met his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at a summit in Woodside, suggested that both leaders candidly outlined their differences on trade and geopolitics and agreed to keep talking. The upshot of this has been hectic diplomacy on both sides, mainly to stake out their positions on a range of differences. This much was clear in a rare visit by China's foreign minister Wang Yi to Washington after a gap of five years in October last year and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Beijing late last week. This was Mr Blinken's second in less than a year and follows the passage of an aid package for Taiwan and a stiff deadline by US authorities to Chinese company ByteDance to sell its stake in TikTok, the popular short video service.