Xi seeks fresh diplomatic inroads at APEC summit
In a change of pace, China’s president had interactions with the US Veep and Taiwan’s representative at the meeting in Bangkok
BANGKOK: Taiwan’s representative to APEC said on Saturday he had a brief but “happy” chat with Xi Jinping at a summit in Bangkok, a rare high-level interaction, while US vice-president Kamala Harris spoke briefly with the Chinese president in another step toward keeping lines of communication open between the two biggest economies.
APEC is one of the few international organisations Chineseclaimed Taiwan is a member of, as Beijing - which views it as a Chinese province and not a country - blocks its participation at most others.
Tensions between Taipei and Beijing have risen since China staged war games near the democratically-governed island in August after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited. Speaking to reporters in Bangkok, Morris Chang, also the founder of Taiwanese chip giant TSMC, said he had talked to Xi on Friday.
“We asked after each, and I congratulated him on the success of the Communist Party’s 20th Congress,” Chang said, referring to last month’s event in Beijing at which Xi secured an unprecedented third term in office.
“It was a very happy, polite interaction,” he added, but said tensions across the Taiwan Strait were not discussed.
APEC has traditionally been one the few forums where China and Taiwan talk, even if just in passing for pleasantries.
Separately, Harris and Xi exchanged remarks on Saturday while heading into a closed-door meeting at summit.
“I greeted President Xi before the APEC Leaders Retreat,” Harris wrote on Twitter. “I noted a key message that President Biden emphasized in his November 14 meeting with President Xi: we must maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between our countries.”
Their exchange closely echoed Biden’s comment to Xi at a meeting between the two leaders earlier in the week about China and the US keeping lines of communication open.
A brief statement from China’s foreign ministry also referenced the Biden-Xi meeting at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, which it described as “strategic and constructive” with “major significance in guiding the next stage of China-US relations.” It said it hoped the vicepresident will play an active role in working with China to promote the two nations’ relations “to return to a healthy and stable track”.
Harris later took part in a handover ceremony in which Thai PM Prayuth Chan-ocha handed over chairmanship of APEC to the US, which will host the group’s meetings next year.
Xi used his first face-to-face meetings with America’s AsiaPacific allies since 2020 to try to forge diplomatic inroads as Washington pushes back against Beijing’s influence in the region.
Xi has not backed away from China’s longstanding claims to Taiwan and most of the South China Sea. But his comments to various leaders at the APEC this week have focused more on Beijing’s pivotal economic role for its neighbours.
As China’s stature has risen, its diplomacy has grown more nuanced than the high-handed approach that has sometimes sparked resentment in the past.
“Xi Jinping’s diplomatic engagements and the supporting chorus of propaganda messages have sought to put forward a softer, smiling facade in what appears to be an effort to reduce friction and tensions, particularly with the US and European countries that have become increasingly critical, frustrated and committed to competing with China,” said Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.