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[ad_1] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) walks with China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang (R) ahead of a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on June 18, 2023. Leah Millis | Afp | Getty Images U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday met with Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Beijing on a high-stakes diplomatic mission to cool U.S.-China tensions that have overshadowed geopolitics in recent months. The trip by Blinken makes him the highest-level American official to visit China since Joe Biden became U.S. president and the first U.S. secretary of state to make the trip in nearly five years. Blinken had "candid, substantive, and constructive talks" with Qin, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said in a statement Sunday . He raised concerns as well as "opportunities to explore cooperation," and he emphasized the importance of open communication, according to the statement. "The Secretary made clear that the United States w

[ad_1] BEIJING: Expansion in China’s services industry slowed in June from the previous month, according to a private survey, providing more evidence that the key driver of the country’s post-Covid recovery is cooling. The Caixin China services purchasing managers’ index declined to 53.9 from 57.1 in May, Caixin and S&P Global said in a statement Wednesday, the weakest since January and well below the median forecast of 56.2 among economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Any reading over 50 indicates an expansion from the prior month, while a number below that suggests contraction. The drop indicates the stronger leg in China’s K-shaped economic recovery this year is losing momentum as consumers scale back spending on services such as travel and restaurants amid elevated youth unemployment and a gloomy income outlook. The data will likely spur more calls for the government to ramp up measures to support growth. “The pressure is mounting to stabilize employment,” said Bruce Pang, ch