Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk together after a meeting during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ week in Woodside, California on November 15, 2023.
Washington
CNN
—
President Joe Biden spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday, marking the first conversation between the leaders since their historic in-person summit in November and the latest in ongoing efforts by US and Chinese officials to defuse tensions between the two superpowers.
The call comes amid heavy global turbulence – the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, as well as North Korea’s nuclear capabilities, were topics of discussion. Other issues that have strained the Washington-Beijing relationship also came up, including Taiwan, China’s recent provocations in the South China Sea and Beijing’s human rights abuses.
The two leaders also discussed a number of issues where US and Chinese officials see room for cooperation, including countering narcotics, the fast-developing world of artificial intelligence and climate change, according to a White House readout.
The White House described the one-hour-45-minute conversation as “candid and constructive” on a range of issues on which the leaders agreed and disagreed. Biden stressed the need to maintain “peace and stability” across the Taiwan Strait and he also raised his concerns over China’s support for Russia’s defense industry, the White House added.
Biden also noted his worries about China’s trade tactics that the White House said harm American workers and emphasized that the US will do what it must to prevent “advanced US technologies from being used to undermine our national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment.”
“The two leaders welcomed ongoing efforts to maintain open channels of communication and responsibly manage the relationship through high-level diplomacy and working-level consultations in the weeks and months ahead,” the readout stated, noting Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China.
The Biden-Xi chat represents a follow-through on a simple commitment that Biden made publicly after meeting with Xi for multiple hours in Woodside, California, last fall: That, moving forward, the two leaders would pick up the phone and call each other more often, with an eye towards preventing potentially dangerous misunderstandings between two of the most powerful countries in the world.
A senior administration official previewing the call was quick to note that despite the great lengths to which both countries have gone to over the last year to de-escalate historic high tensions in US-China relations, a phrase Biden had uttered after his summit with Xi still remains operable: “Trust but verify.”
“I don’t think we ever really take the Chinese at their word when they say they will or will not do something. It is about verifying, as the president says,” the official told CNN when asked about Xi’s pledge that Beijing will not interfere in the US’ 2024 election. “Verifying the results we see, the actions we see, and then continuing to underscore and press on what our concerns are.”
That fraught dynamic was…
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