US President Biden meets Chinese counterpart Xi
Both agree to reopen communication lines to avoid conflict Sunak calls for action against ‘rogue state’ Russia
US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday held their first face-to-face meeting here with both leaders agreeing on the need to manage their differences and prevent a conflict, amid Beijing’s coercive military posturing against Taiwan and in the strategic Indo-Pacific region.
The high-profile meeting between Biden and Xi that lasted nearly three hours took place on the margins of the G20 summit here in this Indonesian city. Both leaders, without their masks, shook hands and greeted each other with smiles, standing in front of a row of US and Chinese flags.
This is their first in-person meeting after Biden became president in 2021. But they have talked over phone to keep the bilateral ties from derailing.
In his opening remarks, Biden said that he was committed to keeping the lines of communication open with Xi.
Dialogue between the two countries was suspended in August, when Beijing cancelled dialogue across a number of areas in retaliation for
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. After Pelosi’s visit, China held a series of provocative live military exercises around Taiwan to make its concerns clear.
Later, the White House said Biden and Xi spoke candidly about their respective priorities and intentions across a range of issues.
“President Biden explained that the US will continue to compete vigourously with the People’s Republic of —AFP
China, including by investing in sources of strength at home and aligning efforts with allies and partners around the world.”
“He reiterated that this competition should not veer into conflict and underscored that the US and China must manage the competition responsibly,” the White House readout said. The two leaders discussed the importance of developing principles that would advance these goals and tasked their teams to discuss them
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for coordinated global action to address international economic instability and fight back against actions of a “rogue state” like Russia as he landed in Indonesia on Monday for the G20 Summit.
Sunak warned that Russia is trying to “asphyxiate the global economy” as he laid out a five-point plan of action for the Group of 20, which are meeting in Bali this week. It comes as countries around the world face huge economic difficulties and inflationary pressures, which the UK stresses are caused or exacerbated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “illegal invasion” of Ukraine.
“At the G20, leaders need to step up to fix the weaknesses in the international economic system which Putin has exploited for years,” Sunak said in a statement on Monday.