CIA Director Bill Burns secretly traveled to China last month, a US official told CNN on Friday, amid US efforts to restore relations with Beijing after a year of tensions. extremely high.
According to the US official, Burns “met with Chinese colleagues and stressed the importance of keeping lines of communication open in intelligence channels.”
Burns’ visit signals how seriously Washington is trying to ease those tensions with Beijing, particularly after the spy balloon incident earlier this year that inflamed the bilateral relationship and caused Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone a planned trip to China.
Burns’ trip, first reported by the Financial Times, is the highest-level visit by a US official to date and comes as the Biden administration tries to resume cabinet-level engagement with Chinese officials, with various degrees of success.
On Friday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his Chinese counterpart Li Shangfu “spoke briefly” in Singapore, a Pentagon spokesman said, after Beijing rejected a US request for a formal meeting. between the two authorities.
(in update)
Source: CNN Brasil
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