Biden hopeful for talks with Xi at G-20
Much has changed since both were vice presidents
BALI, Indonesia – One of President Joe Biden’s favorite anecdotes involves getting to know China’s Xi Jinping when they were their nations’ vice presidents more than a decade ago.
Biden estimates they’ve had more than 67 cumulative hours of face time across visits to Washington and Beijing and in meetings at global summits.
“I know Xi Jinping. I’ve spent more time with him than any other world leader. I know him well. He knows me,” Biden asserted Sunday in Cambodia.
Biden is optimistic about rekindling their relationship at a G-20 Summit of the world’s top economies in Bali, or, at the very least, arrive at a place of mutual understanding about how not cross each other’s red lines.
“I’ve always had straightforward discussions with him,” Biden said. “There’s never any – any miscalculation about what each of us – where each of us stand.”
Much has changed since Biden traveled to Beijing to meet with Xi in 2011, and Xi made his reciprocal visit in 2012 to Washington.
Xi called Biden a “friend” during the Democrat’s trip to China, and Biden told Xi he was “impressed” with his host’s grasp on knowledge of history, openness and candor.
The U.S. now considers China its biggest strategic and economic competitor, and experts worry the relationship is teetering on the edge.
“China-U.S. tensions are at a pretty big boiling point,” says Erin Murphy, a senior fellow in the economic program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Although the leaders have spoken five times by phone or video conference since Biden took office in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic, this is their first in-person meeting with both men leading their nations.
What Biden wants to address
At least four issues are bound to arise:
⬤ Taiwan: Biden has said he will raise concerns about Xi’s desire to reunify China with Taiwan.
⬤ Fair trade: The president plans to have a robust discussion with Xi about maintaining access to free and fair trade in Southeast Asia.
⬤ Climate change: Coming off a United Nations climate change summit in Egypt, Biden is also expected to prod China to move more quickly to reduce its methane emissions.
⬤ North Korea: Biden also wants Xi to exert his influence with North Korea, which has been testing missiles near the border of U.S. ally and Chinese trading partner South Korea.
The importance of the meeting
“They’re not going to settle all of the world’s problems in this meeting,” said
Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee.
But the Biden ally said the conversation is still an important one for the leaders to have. “The security of the world depends on there being a channel of communication between the United States and China for the next decade,” Murphy said.
Murphy said China will decide its Taiwan policy based on a multitude of factors, and talks with the United States are just one of them.
Biden’s team has also tried to keep expectations for the meeting low, warning that agreements on hot button issues are unlikely to come out of the summit.
“I think the President views this as not the end of the line, but rather the start of a series of engagements that will also include further leader-to-leader meetings down the road.” the president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, told reporters during Biden’s Saturday morning flight to Cambodia.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a news conference prior to the meeting that Xi intends to demonstrate what he views as the right way forward for bilateral relations.
“It is important that the U.S. work together with China to properly manage differences, advance mutually beneficial cooperation, avoid misunderstanding and miscalculation, and bring ChinaU.S. relations back to the right track of sound and steady development,” he said.
Biden’s history with China
The U.S. and China reestablished formal ties in 1979.
It was also during that year that Biden made his first visit to the communist country as part of a Senate Foreign Relations committee delegation. He would go on to chair that panel.
Biden would later assess, during his 2011 trip to meet with Xi, that the relationship between the two nations would be of critical importance.
“Fifty years from now, 100 years from now, historians and scholars will judge us based upon whether or not we’re able to establish a strong, permanent and friendly working relationship,” he said.