Amid extremely tense relations between the US and China, the head of the US CIA, William Burns, has secretly traveled to Beijing. This was confirmed by a US government official.
Amid extremely strained relations between the US and China, the head of the US CIA, William Burns, has traveled to Beijing for confidential talks. “Last month Director Burns traveled to Beijing, where he met Chinese counterparts and stressed the importance of keeping intelligence channels open,” a US official said Friday.
The government representative did not provide any further information about the time of the trip or the people he spoke to. As a rule, the CIA does not comment on its chief’s travels.
Relations between China and the United States are currently particularly strained. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled a planned visit to Beijing in February because a suspected Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States.
Only on Tuesday did the United States say that a Chinese warplane had carried out an “unnecessarily aggressive maneuver” near a US reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea last week. Blinken then warned that confrontations like the one between the two airplanes showed the great importance of open channels of communication.
The USA sees the economically and militarily emerging China as the greatest geopolitical challenge in the world. There are a number of points of contention between the two states, including trade and China’s dealings with Taiwan.