US President Joe Biden said he took “positive steps” during an intensive hour-long meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday.
US President Joe Biden said he took “positive steps” during an intensive hour-long meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday.
The two agreed to restore military communications, jointly assess artificial intelligence threats, and combat the fentanyl scourge.
However, Biden’s offhand remark that he still viewed the powerful Chinese leader as a “dictator” showed that the two leaders are still far apart in some respects.
“Well, you see, that’s it,” Biden said in response to a question shouted by the raucous crowd of journalists at the remote gathering site outside San Francisco where 21 Asia-Pacific economies are holding a summit this week.
“He is a dictator in the sense that he is a man who runs a country, a communist country, based on a completely different form of government than ours.”
The White House chose a sprawling, idyllic estate more than an hour’s drive from San Francisco for this emblematic visit, which covered a range of important topics, including Taiwan (the self-governing island that China claims), the possible resumption of military communications, and sensitive trade disagreements, the origin of fentanyl ingredients in China and human rights issues.
President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperative Conference at Filoli Estate in Woodside, Calif., on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2023. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool)
Scenic landscapes cover the San Andreas Fault, where the Pacific and North American tectonic plates meet.
Biden said he had been “outspoken” on these tough issues dividing the two countries, as evidenced by the mixed reception residents of this diverse city gave the Chinese leader, with anti-Communist protesters and pro-Xi greeters lined the streets. On Wednesday, groups got into fistfights in at least two locations, as documented by videos on social media.
Xi said in his brief remarks before the leaders’ meeting began that the two nations were inextricably linked.
“For two big countries like China, having the United States turn its back on each other is not an option,” he said. “It is not realistic for one party to transform the other. And conflicts and confrontations have unbearable consequences for both sides.
I continue to believe that competition between major countries does not follow the current trend and cannot solve the problems of China and the United States or the world in general.
“Planet Earth is big enough for both countries to succeed, and the success of one country is an opportunity for the other.”
So have the presidents of the world’s two most powerful nations managed to paper over the cracks in their relationship?
Biden later spoke to the press. Xi, as is his wont, did not do so.
Neither made a joint statement.
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“I welcome the positive steps we took today,” Biden said. “And it is important for the world to see that we are implementing the approach in the best traditions of American diplomacy. “We talk to our competitors, just talk and be open with each other so that there are no misunderstandings.”
Biden did not praise Xi, saying: “We have differences of opinion. He has a different opinion than me on many things. But he was heterosexual. I don’t mean good, bad, or indifferent; I was just being sincere.”
In the administration’s readout after the meeting, the White House said Biden reiterated Washington’s longstanding stance on Taiwan.
“President Biden emphasized that our One China policy has not changed and has been consistent across decades and administrations,” the statement said. “He reiterated that the United States rejects any unilateral change to the status quo by either party, that we hope that cross-Strait differences will be resolved through peaceful means, and that the world has an interest in cross-Strait peace and stability “He called for restraint in the use of military activities by the People’s Republic of China in and around the Taiwan Strait.”
Craig Singleton, a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, told VOA that he was surprised by the leaders’ words on Taiwan.
“China often claims that the United States is trying to disrupt the status quo in the Strait,” he said. “The opposite is the case. “Xi’s harsh comments once again reveal his desire to speed up reunification timelines, whether through military force or coercion.”
Many who attended the meeting said they did not expect great results, but were happy to see the two leaders talking.
“This engagement, for example between President Biden and Xi Jinping, is fundamental to me because it should send a clear message that we are here to work together and trust each other to solve serious problems: the climate, the problems in Ukraine. or Gaza,” said Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. “There are too many controversial issues in the world and we must try to participate in them.”
Analysts say the success of the ongoing summit of Asia-Pacific economies taking place simultaneously in San Francisco depends on the world’s two largest economies getting along.
“I think it’s an important meeting between President Biden and President Xi, with the primary goal of stabilizing relations by 2024,” said Michael Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
“Both for bilateral purposes and, very importantly, for the APEC region in general. “The countries there, the economies there, want the United States and China to have some kind of modus vivendi, some kind of stable relationship, particularly in view of the Taiwan elections in January and the US elections in November.”
When Biden was asked what he told Xi about the Taiwan election, he said: “I made it clear that I did not expect any interference.”
Singleton of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies told VOA that he interpreted Xi’s words about “peaceful coexistence” differently, saying that “they harken back to the Cold War-era language of Nikita Khrushchev, who promoted the idea of ”peaceful coexistence.” Coexistence “propagated” between the United States and the Soviet Union. As is the case today, previous measures aimed at stability counterintuitively prolonged the survival of the Soviet system and treated the Soviet Union as an immutable monster rather than one whose demise was inevitable.”
Biden said the leaders would continue to talk. And on Thursday they will give the other 19 Asia-Pacific economies a visual reminder of where each stands as leaders pose for a so-called “family photo,” a ritual that is a hallmark of these important summits.
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