Kissinger, but not Kerry, gets a meeting with Xi

Here’s what else you need to know about China today:

The world’s two biggest polluters agreed to resume stalled talks on climate change, but did not finalize any agreements, after U.S. climate envoy John Kerry concluded a series of top-level meetings with Chinese officials during his trip to Beijing.

“We came here to unstick what had been stuck,” Kerry told reporters yesterday. “And indeed, we did succeed.” Both the U.S. and China had agreed to work to “guarantee a positive outcome” at the United Nations (UN) COP28 summit in Dubai later this year.

Kerry’s trip is the latest in a string of recent visits from top U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in a bid to “reset” ties between their two nations. Kerry had met with China’s top brass, including his climate counterpart, Xiè Zhènhuá 解振华, top diplomat Wáng Yì 王毅, and Vice President Hán Zhèng 韩正 — though he did not garner a meeting with Chinese leader and chairman-of-everything Xí Jìnpíng 习近平.

Xi, however, did speak with his “old friend” Henry Kissinger, the former U.S. Secretary of State, today for their first known meeting in Beijing in more than three years. He is currently on a surprise visit to China to speak with top Chinese officials, in an apparent bid to further ease fraying ties between the two superpowers. It is not clear who invited or sent Kissinger to Beijing.

The 100-year-old diplomat had paved the way for official bilateral ties under former U.S. president Richard Nixon, and has pushed the U.S. to take a more conciliatory approach to China. Kissinger “has made historic contributions to breaking the ice in China-U.S. relations, and played an irreplaceable role in enhancing understanding between the two countries,” Wang Yi said (in Chinese) during their meeting yesterday.

China imported record amounts of Russian crude oil for the first half of 2023 with about 11.4 million barrels per day, up 11.7% year-on-year and up 15.3% compared with pre-COVID levels, according to government data compiled by the Financial Times.

China has built more than 600,000 new 5G stations in the last three months to June, bringing the total number to 3 million and exceeding its target for such base stations six months ahead of time.

The figures suggest that China is outpacing the United States in building out its mobile phone 5G network: By comparison, the U.S. built about 100,000 5G base stations between 2019 and 2021, according to the latest available industrial estimate.

Chinese state media: The top story on Party rag the People’s Daily is “Fight to strengthen the army under the banner of the Party.” The other noteworthy front-page story is about the Party and government’s new plan to promote the development and growth of the private economy.

Xinhua’s top Chinese-language story today is lengthily titled “Xi Jinping presided over the second meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Committee, emphasizing that we should effectively strengthen the protection of cultivated land, make every effort to improve the quality of cultivated land, and steadily expand the space for agricultural production.”

Xinhua’s English website leads with a report on Kissinger meeting Xi.