John Kerry: “Climate and diplomacy are separate”
Invitation of President Xi to UN Climate Conference
John Kerry, US special envoy for climate change. Yonhap News John Kerry, US special envoy for climate change, returned home after a four-day visit to China. Attention is focusing on whether the relationship between the two countries, which was frozen by the Chinese ‘reconnaissance balloon’ incident earlier this year, will enter a full-fledged thaw. A meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit to be held in San Francisco in November.
According to Xinhua News Agency on the 19th, special envoy Kerry met with Vice-President Han Jeong at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing that day and said, “Climate change is a universal threat to humanity that must be separated from diplomatic issues. We have the ability to create change. He emphasized that if we start discussions before the 28th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28), we will have an opportunity for change.” COP28 will be held in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) in November.
In particular, Kerry actually invited President Xi, saying, “If our leaders (Biden and Xi Jinping) attend the APEC meeting, we promise to work closely with the Chinese side to produce tangible results.” He explained to Reuters that “the talks with Chinese officials were constructive but complex,” and that “(sensitive) political issues such as Taiwan were also discussed.”
Previously, Special Representative Kerry met with China’s special representative for climate change Xie Zhenhua, member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Wang Yi, and State Council Premier Li Chang to express his willingness to stabilize bilateral relations. The day before, he told Commissioner Wang, “I am glad that there is an opportunity to change the relationship between the two countries (through climate cooperation),” and “President Biden values the relationship with President Xi.” Wang Yuan also called special envoy Kerry an ‘old friend’ and said, “The United States and China suffered from a lack of communication. Sometimes small problems turn into big problems.”
Special envoy Kerry is the third high-ranking US official to visit China this year, following Secretary of State Tony Blincoln on the 18th and 19th of last month and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the 6th and 9th of this month. However, the Global Times, a Chinese state-run media, argued in an editorial that day that “the two countries have a wide range of common interests in responding to climate change,” but that “the core of the problem lies in ‘how to overcome obstacles for cooperation between the two countries.’” ▲ Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State. AFP Yonhap News
100-year-old Kissinger Meets with Minister of Defense of China
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the “living legend” of American diplomacy, visited China. Even at the age of 100, Wang Yi, who is the number one in China’s diplomatic line, met directly with the Communist Party’s Central Political Bureau member and Chinese Defense Minister Li Sangfu to emphasize the need for stability in bilateral relations.
According to the Chinese Foreign Ministry on the 19th, Wang Yuan met with former Minister Kissinger in Beijing that day and said, “China’s development has a strong endogenous drive and an inevitable historical logic.” It is even more impossible to do,” he said. He said, “US policy toward China requires Kissinger-style diplomatic wisdom and Nixon-style political courage.”
Li also told former Secretary Kissinger the day before, “The people of each country hope that China and the United States will take responsibility as great countries and safeguard world prosperity and stability.”
Former Minister Kissinger said, “I visited Beijing because I am a friend of China,” adding, “Currently, challenges and opportunities coexist in the world. The US and China should resolve misunderstandings and peacefully coexist to avoid confrontation.”
Kissinger is a living history of American diplomacy. In July 1971, while serving as national security adviser to former U.S. President Richard Nixon, he visited China in strict secrecy and discussed ways to improve bilateral relations with then-Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai (1898-1976). This led to the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries in 1979.
Correspondent Liu Ji-young in Beijing
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2023-07-19 15:36:02
