Given how wide the rift has become, the fact that the trip was happening in the first place had been cause for celebration.But now what remains is a sense of huge missed opportunity.All along, US officials had made clear that this was not about breakthroughs. It was about talking.Mr Blinken wants to "avoid competition veering into conflict".One of the ways you do that is making sure that you actually have good lines of communication," he said in a speech last month, calling for "putting some guardrails into the relationship."

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