Blinken's Beijing meetings; Byebye spy balloon; Li Qiang in Germany; CYL Congress; Waiting for stimulus

US Secretary of State Blinken has left Beijing after meeting Qin Gang, Wang Yi and Xi Jinping. On Monday afternoon President Biden praised Blinken to reporters:

“He did a hell of a job,” Biden told reporters on a visit to California. “We’re on the right trail here.”

Asked if he felt the US had made progress, Biden responded: “I don’t feel. You know it’s been made.”

“You don’t have to ask that,” he said. “You can ask how much progress was made.”

The US efforts to “get back to Bali” are underway, starting from the top with President Biden, who seems to have really pushed to start fixing the US-China relationship after the G-7 and warnings from his counterparts there about the dangers of a worsening relationship.

Based on the PRC readouts from the three meetings, there does not appear to have been much progress towards resolving any of the structural issues that led Foreign Minister Qin Gang to say to Blinken that the “China-U.S. relationship is at the lowest point since its establishment”.

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