Biden and Xi cool Cold War rhetoric in landmark summit

Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping tried to take some heat out of their simmering superpower rivalry on Monday, during a three-hour summit that found common ground on Ukraine but left little doubt that stark differences remain.

Biden emerged from the meeting proclaiming there need not be a new Cold War, as both leaders spoke of the desire to prevent high tensions from spilling over into conflict.

Xi told Biden that the two countries “share more, not less, common interests”, according to a Chinese account of the meeting, sounding more conciliatory than the last three pandemic-filled years without face-to-face presidential meetings would suggest.

“The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship,” Xi told him.

Trying to scotch the notion that China is bent on usurping the United States and remaking the world in its own image, Xi fought and cannot be won, according to the White House.

They “underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” the US added.

That common cause is likely to give Putin pause as he weighs how to turn the tide of a war that his regime’s survival could hinge on. Xi told Biden that Taiwan is the “first red line that must not be crossed in China-us relations,” according to the Chinese foreign ministry statement.

— Reuters reportedly said Beijing does not seek to challenge the United States or “change the existing international order”. On the pressing issue of Russia’s war in Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats to use nuclear weapons, the pair agreed that nuclear war should not be US President Joe Biden shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as they meet on the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday.