President Xi Jinping of China and Russia's Vladimir Putin doubled down on their alliance against the West this week during the Kremlin leader's visit to Beijing.

China is removing its foreign minister, Qin Gang, and reappointing his predecessor, veteran diplomat Wang Yi, to fill the position.

America's top diplomat heads from China to the U.K. where Ukraine's post-war recovery tops the agenda

Secretary of State Antony Blinken's trip shows the Biden administration is keen to reignite diplomacy and inject stability to its dealings with China, but whether it was a success remains to be seen.

In a first visit to China by a member of President Biden's Cabinet, the secretary of state will seek "open lines of communication" with Beijing but no diplomatic breakthrough is expected.

Still, U.S. and China need to work together on issues like climate change and debt relief.

Moscow said the long-anticipated visit is coming at the invitation of President Vladimir Putin. The talks are expected to focus on the war in Ukraine, though it wasn't mentioned explicitly.

The two diplomats will meet for the first time in the aftermath of the balloon crisis earlier this month.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off his trip to China after the discovery of a Chinese "surveillance" balloon over the U.S. It's the latest setback in an increasingly fraught relationship.

Local officials in London rejected plans for a massive, new Chinese Embassy, a bitter setback for China's government that once promised a "golden age" for its British relations.

Qin Gang brought a tougher style to China's foreign ministry pulpit. Now he is Beijing's man in Washington, inheriting a hard post amid the most fraught relations in years between China and the U.S.