Xi and Biden vow to avoid conflict
China, US presidents open high-stakes summit in Bali
JAKARTA: Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping opened their high-stakes summit in Bali with a handshake yesterday, and with both men stressing the need to manage differences and avoid conflict.
“The world has come to a crossroads,” Xi said vowing a “candid” discussion of issues that have riven relations between the world’s two leading powers.
“The world expects that China and the US will properly handle the relationship.”
For his part, Biden greeted Xi with a smile that belied the growing competition with the nation that has defined the last century and a rival that seeks to define the next one.
Biden said he wanted the United States and
China to “manage our differences, prevent competition from becoming conflict”.
Rivalry between the world’s top two economies has intensified sharply as Beijing has become more powerful and more assertive about replacing the US-led order that has prevailed since World War II.
Biden has said the meeting should establish each country’s “red lines”, and the overarching goal will be setting “guardrails” and “clear rules of the road”, a senior White House official told reporters hours before the summit.
Xi and Biden have spoken by video conference five times since the US leader took office but the Chinese president’s last in-person US summit was with Donald Trump in 2019.
Beijing wants Washington to “work together with China”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said yesterday.
She called for the United States to “appropriately keep differences in check, promote mutually beneficial cooperation and avoid misunderstandings and misjudgements in order to push US-China relations back on track for healthy and stable development”.
Xi arrives buoyed by securing a landmark third term in office, cementing him as the most powerful Chinese leader for generations.
Meanwhile, Biden has been bolstered by his Democratic Party’s better-than-expected showing in midterm elections.
He will not be the only leader meeting Xi, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slated to hold talks today that will be the first formal sitdown between leaders of the two countries since 2017.
“There are no preconditions on this discussion. I am looking forward to having constructive dialogue,” Albanese told reporters.
The G20 summit opens today and comes with food and fuel prices spiking worldwide, Ukraine mired in conflict and the renewed threat of nuclear war casting a menacing pall.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is staying away and has instead sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.