Biden, Xi meet at G20 summit, ‘have to determine pink strains’, says US president | World News

President Joe Biden and Chinese language President Xi Jinping opened their first in-person assembly Monday for the reason that U.S. president took workplace almost two years in the past, amid growing financial and safety tensions between the 2 superpowers as they compete for world affect.

Xi and Biden greeted one another with a handshake at a luxurious resort resort in Indonesia, the place they’re attending the Group of 20 summit of enormous economies. As they started their dialog, Biden mentioned he and Xi have a “duty” to point out that their nations can “handle our variations” and determine areas of mutual cooperation. Xi added that he hoped the pair would “elevate the connection” and that he was ready to have a “candid and in-depth alternate of views” with Biden.

Learn extra: LIVE updates: Hope to keep away from US-China ‘battle’, Joe Biden tells Xi Jinping

Each males entered the extremely anticipated assembly with bolstered political standing at residence. Democrats triumphantly held onto management of the U.S. Senate, with an opportunity to spice up their ranks by one in a runoff election in Georgia subsequent month, whereas Xi was awarded a 3rd five-year time period in October by the Communist Celebration’s nationwide congress, a break with custom.

“We now have little or no misunderstanding,” Biden advised reporters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Sunday, the place he participated in a gathering of southeast Asian nations earlier than leaving for Indonesia. “We simply obtained to determine the place the pink strains are and … what are crucial issues to every of us going into the subsequent two years.”

Biden added: “His circumstance has modified, to state the apparent, at residence.” The president mentioned of his personal state of affairs: “I do know I’m coming in stronger.”

White Home aides have repeatedly sought to minimize any notion of battle between the 2 nations and have emphasised that they imagine the 2 nations can work in tandem on shared challenges resembling local weather change and well being safety.

However relations between the U.S. and China have grown extra strained beneath successive American administrations, as financial, commerce, human rights and safety variations have come to the fore.

As president, Biden has repeatedly taken China to process for human rights abuses in opposition to the Uyghur folks and different ethnic minorities, crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive commerce practices, army provocations in opposition to self-ruled Taiwan and variations over Russia’s prosecution of its warfare in opposition to Ukraine. Chinese language officers have largely shunned public criticism of Russia’s warfare, though Beijing has prevented direct assist resembling supplying arms.

Taiwan has emerged as some of the contentious points between Washington and Beijing. A number of instances in his presidency, Biden has mentioned the U.S. would defend the island — which China has eyed for eventual unification — in case of a Beijing-led invasion. However administration officers have confused every time that the U.S.’s “One China” coverage has not modified. That coverage acknowledges the federal government in Beijing whereas permitting for casual relations and protection ties with Taipei, and its posture of “strategic ambiguity” over whether or not whether or not it might reply militarily if the had been island attacked.

Tensions flared even increased when Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., visited Taiwan in August, prompting China to retaliate with army drills and the firing of ballistic missiles into close by waters.

The Biden administration additionally blocked exports of superior pc chips to China final month — a nationwide safety transfer that bolsters U.S. competitors in opposition to Beijing. Chinese language officers rapidly condemned the restrictions.

And although the 2 males have held 5 cellphone or video calls throughout Biden’s presidency, White Home officers say these encounters aren’t any substitute for Biden having the ability to meet and measurement up Xi in individual. That process is all of the extra necessary after Xi strengthened his grip on energy via the celebration congress, as lower-level Chinese language officers have been unable or unwilling to talk for his or her chief.

Requested in regards to the anticipated assembly, China’s international ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian mentioned final week at a information briefing that China was searching for “win-win cooperation with the U.S.” whereas reiterating Beijing’s issues in regards to the U.S. stance on Taiwan.

“The U.S. must cease obscuring, hollowing out and distorting the One China precept, abide by the fundamental norms in worldwide relations, together with respecting different nations’ sovereignty, territorial integrity and noninterference in different nations’ inside affairs,” he mentioned.

Xi has stayed near residence all through the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the place he has enforced a “zero-COVID” coverage that has resulted in mass lockdowns which have roiled the worldwide provide chains.

He made his first journey outdoors China since begin of the pandemic in September with a cease in Kazakhstan after which onto Uzbekistan to participate within the eight-nation Shanghai Cooperation Group with Putin and different leaders of the Central Asian safety group.

White Home officers and their Chinese language counterparts have spent weeks negotiating out the entire particulars of the assembly, which is going down at Xi’s resort with translators offering simultaneous interpretation via headsets.

U.S. officers had been wanting to see how Xi approaches the Biden sit-down after consolidating his place because the unquestioned chief of the state, saying they might wait to evaluate whether or not that made him kind of prone to search out areas of cooperation with the U.S.