Abbas in Beijing and Blinken-Qin call

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

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Beijing yesterday for a state visit on June 13 to 16, his fifth official trip to China. Upon announcing the visit, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stated on June 9 that China has put forward proposals on “resolving the Palestinian question” and called to “resolutely advance a political settlement” between Israel and Palestine, as Beijing looks to strengthen ties in the Middle East and ramp up its position as a global peacemaker.

Today, Abbas met Xí Jìnpíng 习近平, who said that “China and Palestine are good friends and good partners who trust and support each other,” and noted that “China was one of the first countries to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization and the State of Palestine.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Qín Gāng 秦刚 had a phone call today ahead of a highly anticipated visit by Washington’s top diplomat to Beijing aimed at stabilizing increasingly fraught relations. Qin urged the U.S. to stop meddling in its internal affairs and to “stop harming China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests in the name of competition,” while Blinken raised areas of concern and stressed open lines of communication to “avoid miscalculation and conflict.”

Hong Kong police arrested a man for spraying graffiti on the U.S. consulate with the words “hegemony” in English and “double standards” in simplified Chinese, which is used in mainland China, whereas traditional Chinese is typically used in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. Local media outlets reported that the suspect, a 47-year-old man, was from Shandong Province and came to Hong Kong with a two-way permit.

Hong Kong wants to import 20,000 workers in an effort to counter labor shortages in the city’s construction, transport, and aviation sectors. But a number of labor groups across the political spectrum have criticized the move as “circumventing” union leaders and ignoring the concerns of local workers.

Chinese state media: Education is the focus on the front page of the print edition of Party paper the People’s Daily today, with one big story on improving the country’s public, compulsory education system, and another on the need to achieve concrete results from the ongoing Xi Jinping Thought campaign and ensure that Party members are not seduced by corruption and always “puts the interests of the masses first.”

Xinhua News Agency today headlines a meeting between Xi Jinping and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Beijing on Wednesday (Chinese, English).