Report: China Has ‘Frozen’ All Talks with United States

China has “frozen” all high-level bilateral diplomatic contact with the United States since February’s Chinese spy balloon incident, Politico reported on Wednesday.

According to Politico, the Chinese Communist Party postponed or canceled several scheduled engagements expected between senior officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to the Communist country and a phone call between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The outlet cited a current U.S. official and a former State Department official regarding the freeze on communication between the two countries, though Blinken’s trip cancellation was made public in February in the wake of the initial discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon in Montana.

Politico explained:

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters last month that the White House was hoping to nail down a call following the March 13 closure of the annual meeting of China’s parliament. China’s Foreign Ministry responded by making clear that Beijing was in no hurry to reconnect the two leaders. “Communication should not be carried out for the sake of communication,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters. The White House needed to “show sincerity … to help bring China-U.S. relations back to the right track,” Wang said.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby refloated the U.S. desire for a Biden-Xi call a week later. Beijing hasn’t responded publicly. Kirby said Biden’s administration also wants to broker a visit to China by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and get Blinken’s Beijing trip “back on the calendar.” China’s Commerce Ministry has said it “welcomes Secretary Yellen’s hope for a visit to China” and that it’s “open to Raimondo’s wish to visit,” but had yet to receive formal notification of Raimondo’s intentions. But the Chinese government hasn’t indicated any timetable for when Yellen, Raimondo or Blinken may travel to China.

On Tuesday, in response to a request for comment from the White House, a senior administration official said in a statement: “We have been keeping open lines of communication with the [People’s Republic of China] on shared issues of concern in the U.S.-China relationship, and we will continue to do so.”

The anonymous U.S. official and the former State Department official allegedly familiar with the information told Politico that the Biden administration has been dealing with Chinese counterparts on day-to-day matters and that the Biden-Xi call has come up in some conversations. Yet, the former State Department official noted that the conversations have been on a “mid-level” basis about “regular operational issues.”

The same officials claimed that China is rebuffing U.S. efforts for talks potentially in anticipation of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) meeting with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday. Beijing has repeatedly threatened Washington to stop McCarthy from meeting the president on her travel stop in California.

On Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Affairs spokesperson Mao Ning said that the meeting “undermines China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The arms sales to the island nation could also be a factor.

“The Chinese have been reluctant to engage in discussions around confidence building or crisis communications or hotlines,” National Security Council Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said last week at an event for the Center for a New American Security. “Given the fact that our forces operate in proximity, we’re going to have increasing challenges.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.