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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping as he wrapped up a two-day high-stakes visit to Beijing aimed at easing soaring tensions between the countries.

There’s much to talk about, but it’s not clear if it will be constructive. Meetings in Beijing will offer clues as to whether the two nations can smooth over tensions.

A meeting is yet to be confirmed, a day after ‘candid’ talks with China’s foreign minister, who said ties were at their lowest point since diplomatic relations began
Antony Blinken was greeted by China’s top diplomat on Monday, and will perhaps meet its president, on the final day of a rare visit aimed at trying to resurrect relations between Washington and Beijing from historic lows.
Neither Blinken nor Wang Yi made any comment to reporters as they greeted each other and sat for their discussion during what is the first visit by a US secretary of state to China in five years.

Also, Times graphics show how Russia likely blew up Ukraine’s dam.

A growing number of states are considering or have passed measures this legislative term to ban “foreign adversaries” and foreign entities – specifically China – from buying farmland.

US secretary of state ‘held candid, substantive, and constructive talks’, state department spokesperson says
The US secretary of state, , will seek China’s cooperation in curbing the production of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl during his two-day visit to Beijing, one of several contentious issues that the high-stakes diplomatic outreach will touch on.
Aides to Blinken have said the issue will feature prominently in discussions between US and Chinese officials during the trip as the US seeks China’s help in curbing Chinese manufacture of precursor chemicals used to create the drug that helped drive more than two-thirds of 100,000 American overdose deaths in each of the past two years.

US secretary of state’s trip seeks to clear the air but issues such as Taiwan and Ukraine leave limited room for compromise
Antony Blinken has arrived in Beijing on the highest-level trip by a US official since 2018, with his aides signalling he was seeking to build lines of communication rather than secure any practical breakthrough agreements.
The expectations, set deliberately low for the two-day talks, allow room for the world’s two largest economies to air their differences over the Taiwan strait, technology, human rights and the war in Ukraine.

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This year’s , titled Laboratory for the Future, was inaugurated on the same day that the leaders of the G7 industrialised nations met in Hiroshima. As different as these events appeared, both signalled the end of globalisation. Both also displayed the promise and perils of a fragmenting world.
Of all the arts, architecture is the most globally homogenising. Erecting tropical copycats of Paris and London was a staple of European . Today, the same glass-and-steel tower blocks dot interchangeable financial capitals the world over.

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Rep. Michael Waltz said Antony Blinken's visit to China 'plays into Chinese propaganda and calls for an abandonment of 'old thinking.' ...