People-to-people diplomacy key to easing fraught China-US relations: American expert

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Jun 19, 2023, 02:15 ET

GUANGZHOU, China, June 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- "We are at a crucial time, but is it the right time for Blinken to visit China? Better late than never. I'm still hopeful that as a result of these meetings starting today, China and the US will get back on a better footing and have a more positive relationship," said Harvey Dzodin, former legal adviser in the Carter administration, in an online interview with GDToday from Vienna, Austria.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Beijing on June 18 for a two-day visit to China. He is the highest-ranking US government official to visit the country since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.

Reestablishment of communication channels urged to ease tension between China and the US

"The former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is right that if the US and China don't change the present trajectory, we're in for big trouble. We have to step back from the edge of disaster," Harvey noted.

He recalled that China and the US used to hold multiple strategic and economic dialogues annually, which had been discontinued by the Trump administration.

"I hope more efforts will be made to get back to having channels of communication. And when there is a problem in between formal dialogues, officials on both sides will know who they can pick up the phone to or write an email to, in order to address a problem of mutual interest or concern," Harvey said.

People-to-people diplomacy key to improving China-US relations

On June 14, Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, started his first visit to China in four years, following the China trips by Western business leaders, such as JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk this year.

"We need more of such exchanges to perform a parallel track to formal diplomacy between the US and China. Zhou Enlai, your first premier, had a model of exactly this, called folk diplomacy. Today, we call it people-to-people diplomacy. It's actually a better solution even now," Harvey noted.

"Now that COVID-19's impacts on international transportation are being eased, I hope that more Americans and Europeans will visit China and look for themselves. They don't know the great progress China's made," Harvey said.

Legal adviser in Carter administration on Blinken's China visit

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SOURCE GDToday