Biden calls Chinese President Xi Jinping about U.S.-China relationship

[xizhimen]

Biden calls Chinese President Xi Jinping about U.S.-China relationship
BY MARGARET BRENNAN
SEPTEMBER 9, 2021 / 10:24 PM / CBS NEWS


In their first conversation in seven months, President Biden spoke by phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday evening. This was a call initiated by Mr. Biden and motivated by what is essentially his exasperation that lower-level Chinese officials have been unwilling to hold substantive conversations with his administration.

A senior administration official said that the president wants to keep the channels of communication open so the two countries do not unintentionally "veer into conflict." The intent is to have a strategic conversation about how to manage competition between the two world powers. The official also said phone call was a test — to see if conversations at the very highest level would be more effective, given Xi's consolidation of power.

Mr. Biden has repeatedly mentioned his personal familiarity with Xi. He told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell in February, "I had 24-25 hours of private meetings with [Xi] when I was vice president, traveled 17,000 miles with him. I know him pretty well."

But the two presidents have yet to hold a face-to-face meeting, and U.S.-China relations have been fraying for years. Biden administration officials have had a series of awkward encounters with their Chinese counterparts since their very first in-person meeting in March, in Anchorage, Alaska. During that session, Chinese diplomats exchanged angry words on camera in front of the press while they stood with both Secretary of State Blinken and National Security adviser Jake Sullivan.

Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman's visit to Tianjing in July was similarly tense.

"I don't want to convey that diplomacy on specific issues has hit a wall," a senior official said in response to a question about the state of affairs. The official described these earlier interactions as "unfruitful."

U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry was in China last week to see if the two countries — the world's top polluters — could broker a deal on the shared concern regarding climate. A day earlier, China's foreign minister had rhetorically linked Beijing's potential willingness to cooperate on climate change with the overall U.S.-China relationship.

The Biden administration believes that much of these antics are simply for China's domestic propaganda purposes. The senior administration official stated that Chinese officials are simply reading talking points in order to perform for their bosses during their interactions, and they have no actual ability to negotiate.

"They're trying to see if we'll blink," the senior administration official said.

Biden calls Chinese President Xi Jinping about U.S.-China relationship

The president has been exasperated that lower-level Chinese officials haven't been willing to speak substantively with his administration.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[xizhimen]

Biden and China's Xi discuss managing competition, avoiding conflict in call
Reuters
September 10, 2021

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden spoke by phone with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for about 90 minutes on Thursday, a senior U.S. official said, with both leaders discussing the need to avoid letting competition between the world's two largest economies veer into conflict.

Relations between Washington and Beijing have been at their lowest point in decades and it was only the second call between the leaders since Biden took office in January.

A White House statement said the two leaders had "a broad, strategic discussion," including "areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values, and perspectives diverge."

The conversation focused on economic issues, climate change and COIVD-19, the senior U.S. official said.


Chinese state media said the conversation was "candid" and "in-depth", adding that President Xi said U.S. policy on China imposes great difficulties on relations between the two.

The Chinese report added that both sides agreed to maintain frequent contact and to ask working-level teams to increase communications.

Occasional high-level meetings since Xi and Biden's first call in February have yielded scant progress on a slew of issues, from climate change, to human rights, and transparency over the origins of COVID-19. read more

During the ensuing months, the two sides have lashed out at each other on an almost constantly, often resorting to vitriolic public attacks, slapping sanctions on each other's officials and criticizing the other for not upholding their international obligations.


"President Biden underscored the United States' enduring interest in peace, stability, and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific and the world and the two leaders discussed the responsibility of both nations to ensure competition does not veer into conflict," the statement said.

The Biden administration, preoccupied by a chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, has signaled that ending America's longest war will give U.S. political and military leaders the space to focus on more pressing threats stemming from China's rapid rise.

But Beijing has been quick to seize on the U.S. failure in Afghanistan to try to portray the United States as a fickle partner and China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said last month that Washington should not expect China's cooperation on that or other issues if it was also trying to "contain and suppress" China.

Facing stalemate in ties, Biden and China's Xi discuss avoiding conflict in call

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke for 90 minutes on Thursday, in their first talks in seven months, discussing the need to ensure that competition between the world's two largest economies does not veer into conflict.

www.reuters.com

 

[xizhimen]

Biden tells Xi US and China must not ‘veer into conflict’​

White House says leaders agree to engage ‘openly and straightforwardly’ amid US frustration at lack of progress in relations

Fri 10 Sep 2021 13.39 BST

Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, have spoken in their first phone call for seven months, amid continuing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

During the 90-minute call, which was initiated by the US president, the two leaders discussed their shared responsibility to ensure competition does not “veer into conflict”, according to a readout from the White House.

The statement said the two leaders had “a broad, strategic discussion” including on “areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values and perspectives diverge”.

It said Biden and Xi agreed to engage “openly and straightforwardly”.

“This discussion, as President Biden made clear, was part of the United States’ ongoing effort to responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the PRC,” the statement said.

A Chinese readout said the conversation was candid and in-depth. “Whether China and the US can handle their relationship well bears on the future of the world. It is a question of the century to which the two countries must provide a good answer,” said Xi, according to the readout.

Xi allowed his officials to work with their US counterparts to “continue their engagement and dialogue to advance coordination and cooperation” on the climate emergency, Covid-19 response and economic recovery as well as on significant international and regional issues, but added that they should be “on the basis of respecting each other’s core concerns”.

Analysts in Washington said there has been ongoing frustration in the US that efforts to find common ground had so far been fruitless. They said China’s increasing aggression in the South China Sea and Taiwan strait, and the growing presence of the US and its increased support of Taiwan, had also increased concerns over the prospect of conflict.

China for its part accused the US of interfering in its domestic affairs by politicising issues such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang – both China’s territories. Some Chinese commentators went as far as to suggest the US was attempting to contain China.

Recent efforts to progress relations have stalled. Last week, John Kerry met China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi. Kerry told reporters he had urged Wang and the Chinese delegation to do more on the climate crisis, which was more important than politics.

Wang, however, countered that bilateral climate cooperation “cannot be separated from the wider environment of China-US relations,” and that Washington should “stop viewing China as a threat and a rival” and “cease containing and suppressing China all over the world”.

He added that the US saw the two sides’ joint efforts against global heating as an oasis. “But surrounding the oasis is a desert, and the oasis could be desertified very soon,” he said.

The two leaders also discussed the issue of the climate emergency in their latest call. The Chinese readout said Beijing had “taken the initiative to actively shoulder international responsibilities befitting China’s national conditions”.


Bilateral relations between two of the world’s most significant powers have plummeted since the Trump administration. A high-level meeting in Marchincluding Wang, China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, also descended into hostile public rebukes.

According to the White House, Biden initiated Thursday’s call. A senior administration official told the Associated Press the White House had been unsatisfied with early engagements with China.

The official, who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said White House officials were hopeful that Xi hearing directly from Biden could prove beneficial.

The White House official said Biden made clear to Xi that he had no intention of moving away from his administration’s policy of pressing China on human rights, trade and other areas where it believed China was acting outside international norms.

Biden tells Xi US and China must not ‘veer into conflict’

White House says leaders agree to engage ‘openly and straightforwardly’ amid US frustration at lack of progress in relations

www.theguardian.com