Photo/Illutration U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken boarding a plane to take him to China at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on June 16 (Pool Photo via AP)

BEIJING--U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing early Sunday on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to try to cool exploding U.S.-China tensions that have set many around the world on edge.

Blinken was to begin two days of talks with senior Chinese officials in the afternoon. He is the highest-level American official to visit China since President Joe Biden took office and the first secretary of state to make the trip in five years.

The trip comes after he postponed plans to visit in February after the shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon over the U.S.

Yet, prospects for any significant breakthrough on the most vexing issues facing the planet’s two largest economies are slim, given the increasingly fraught ties in recent years. Animosity and recriminations have steadily escalated over a series of disagreements that have implications for global security and stability.

Blinken plans to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang on Sunday, top diplomat Wang Yi, and possibly President Xi Jinping on Monday, according to U.S. officials.

Biden and Xi agreed to Blinken’s trip early at a meeting last year in Bali. It came within a day of happening in February but was delayed by the diplomatic and political tumult brought on by the discovery of what Washington says was a Chinese spy balloon flying across the United States that was shot down.

The list of disagreements and potential conflict points is long: It ranges from trade with Taiwan, human rights conditions in China to Hong Kong, as well as the Chinese military assertiveness in the South China Sea to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

U.S. officials said prior to Blinken’s departure from Washington on Friday that he would raise each of them, though neither side has shown any inclination to back down on their positions.

Shortly before leaving, Blinken emphasized the importance of the United States and China establishing and maintaining better lines of communication. The United States wants to make sure “that the competition we have with China doesn’t veer into conflict” due to avoidable misunderstandings, he told reporters.

Biden and Xi had made commitments to improve communications “precisely so that we can make sure we are communicating as clearly as possible to avoid possible misunderstandings and miscommunications,” Blinken said Friday.

Xi offered a hint of a possible willingness to reduce tensions, saying in a meeting with Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates on Friday that the United States and China can cooperate to “benefit our two countries.”

“I believe that the foundation of Sino-U.S. relations lies in the people,” Xi told Gates. “Under the current world situation, we can carry out various activities that benefit our two countries, the people of our countries, and the entire human race.”

Biden told White House reporters Saturday he was “hoping that over the next several months, I’ll be meeting with Xi again and talking about legitimate differences we have, but also how ... to get along.”

Chances could come at a Group of 20 leaders’ gathering in September in New Delhi and at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November in San Francisco that the United States is hosting.

Since the cancellation of Blinken’s trip in February, there have been some high-level engagements. CIA chief William Burns traveled to China in May, while China’s commerce minister traveled to the United States. And Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met with Wang in Vienna in May.

But those have been punctuated by bursts of angry rhetoric from both sides over the Taiwan Strait, their broader intentions in the Indo-Pacific, China’s refusal to condemn Russia for its war against Ukraine, and U.S. allegations from Washington that Beijing is attempting to bolster its worldwide surveillance capabilities, including in Cuba.

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