Kissinger meets China’s defence minister in surprise Beijing visit

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Beijing: Henry Kissinger, the 100-year-old former secretary of state who has pushed the United States to take a more conciliatory approach to China, has made a surprise visit to Beijing, meeting China’s defence minister.

The previously unannounced trip by Kissinger, who more than 50 years ago helped pave the way for diplomatic ties between the US and China during president Richard Nixon’s administration, coincided with a string of visits by current American officials to China.

Henry Kissinger pictured last December. Credit: AP

On Tuesday, the day Kissinger met Defence Minister Li Shangfu, President Joe Biden’s climate change envoy, John Kerry, met the Chinese premier and top foreign policy official. In recent weeks, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen have also travelled to Beijing to try to stabilise US-China relations.

But while those officials met with varying levels of chilliness or scolding from Chinese officials or state media, reflecting the geopolitical tensions, the Defence Ministry’s description of the meeting with Kissinger was warmer. The fact Kissinger met Li at all was notable: last month China rebuffed a request for Li to meet US Defence Minister Lloyd Austin, at a summit in Singapore. (China blamed the refusal on US sanctions on Li.)

During Blinken’s visit last month, Chinese officials again rejected a request to reopen direct channels of military-to-military communications.

In the meeting with Kissinger, Li said he hoped the US would work with China to promote the “healthy, stable development of the relationship between the two countries and the two militaries”, according to the Defence Ministry’s statement.

Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in 2019. Credit: AP

Li also criticised “some people in the United States” for “not meeting China halfway”, noting that the atmosphere for friendly communication had been “destroyed.”

Kissinger, the Defence Ministry said, had said he was “here as a friend of China”, and that the two countries should “eliminate misunderstandings, coexist peacefully and avoid confrontation.”

It was not immediately clear how long Kissinger would be in Beijing or whether he would meet other officials, including China’s leader, Xi Jinping. Xi and Kissinger met in Beijing in 2019, when Xi told Kissinger that he hoped he would “enjoy many more healthy years ahead and continue to be a promoter of and contributor to Sino-US relations,” according to Xinhua, China’s state news agency.

Chinese state media has long showered Kissinger with praise, especially as a foil to the more aggressive stances toward Beijing taken by recent US presidential administrations.

In an article in May, for Kissinger’s 100th birthday, the Global Times, a nationalistic party-run tabloid, said Kissinger was legendary, and “still keeps his great mind razor-sharp on US-China relations by explicitly warning Washington” against an adversarial relationship.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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