‘Hell of a job’: Biden’s reaction and 5 other takeaways from Blinken’s trip to China

U.S. President Joe Biden said Secretary of State Antony Blinken “did a hell of a job” in Beijing.

His comments came after Blinken’s high-profile diplomatic mission to China, aimed at soothing strained ties with Beijing.

“We’re on the right trail here,” Biden said Monday.

In a surprise meeting, Blinken met Chinese President Xi Jinping for a 35-minute meeting toward the end of his two-day visit. He is the highest-level American official to visit China in nearly five years.

Asked if he felt progress had been made in the Blinken-Xi meeting, the U.S. president responded: “You don’t have to ask that. You can ask how much progress was made.”

Blinken also met China’s top diplomat Wang Yi as well as Foreign Minister Qin Gang during the visit.

Here are other takeaways from Blinken’s trip to China:

Biden wasn’t the only one who saw progress in the talks.

“The two sides have agreed to follow through the common understanding President Biden and I had reached in Bali,” Xi said in a video carried by Chinese state-owned media CCTV.

Both sides also “made progress and reached agreement on some specific issues,” he said without disclosing further details. “This is very good.”

Xi called for stable relations with the U.S., saying the world needs the relationship of the two economic giants to be “generally stable.”

The U.S. State Department described the talks as “candid, substantive, and constructive.”

Blinken’s meeting could pave the way for Biden to meet Xi in November.

“Both sides agreed on follow-on senior engagements in Washington and Beijing to continue open lines of communication,” according to the State Department.

The secretary of State invited Qin to visit the U.S. and they agreed to schedule a reciprocal visit at a mutually suitable time, according to the statement.

While no…