BEIJING — Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu in Beijing on Tuesday, the ministry said in a statement.
The US State Department said Kissinger was in Beijing as a private citizen, not on behalf of the US government.
During the surprise visit, Kissinger said he was a friend of China and encouraged the two countries to cooperate more closely, according to the statement.
“The United States and China must eliminate misunderstandings, coexist peacefully, and avoid confrontation. History and practice have continually shown that neither the United States nor China can afford to treat the other as an adversary,” Kissinger said, according to a Reuters translation.
Without giving names, Li said that “some people in the US.” they had previously failed to meet China halfway, causing Sino-US relations to drop to an all time low.
Kissinger’s meeting with Li comes as John Kerry, the presidential special envoy for climate, is also in Beijing for climate talks.
Kerry’s trip to China follows those of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in recent weeks.
Blinken said that failed to re-establish talks between the military with China during his visit in June.
Diplomatic relations between the two world powers have become increasingly fractured in recent months amid a series of tit-for-tat. Tech Sector Trade Tops and the increase in tensions around the Taiwan Strait. Li and his US defense counterpart, Lloyd Austin, have not officially spoken despite security concerns.
Kissinger’s visit comes almost exactly 52 years after his secret visit to Beijing in July 1971, a move that paved the way for then-US President Richard Nixon to normalize relations between the US and the Mao Zedong’s China.
More than half a century later, the 100-year-old man is still widely revered in China. In a May article in China’s global times newspaper, Kissinger’s contributions to US-China relations were cited as one of the “highlights of his career”.
