NUSA DUA, Indonesia — Presidents
Joe Biden
and Xi Jinping clashed Monday over Taiwan but found areas of common ground
during the powers’ first in-person summit in three years, including a joint
warning against Russia using nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
اضافة اعلان
Xi and Biden both sought to lower the temperature as
they met for more than two hours on the resort island of Bali, with the
presidents both saying they wanted to prevent high tensions from spilling over
into conflict.
In a sign of headway on working together, the White
House announced that Secretary of State
Antony Blinken will visit China — the
most senior US visitor since 2018.
Biden and Xi, who is on only his second overseas
trip since the pandemic, shook hands and smiled before the two countries’ flags
at a hotel in Bali, where the G20 opens a summit on Tuesday.
Biden, sitting across from Xi at facing tables, said
that Beijing and Washington “share responsibility” to show the world that they
can “manage our differences, prevent competition from becoming conflict”.
Xi, China’s most powerful leader in decades who is
fresh from securing a norm-breaking third term, told Biden that the world has
“come to a crossroads”.
“The world expects that China and the US will
properly handle the relationship,” Xi told him.
Xi later told him that China and the US “share more,
not less” in common interests, according to a Chinese statement.
‘First red line’
Tensions have risen sharply over Taiwan, with
China in August conducting
major military exercises after a visit to the self-governing democracy, which
it claims, by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
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.
The White House
said that Biden told Xi he opposed any changes on Taiwan — after the US leader
repeatedly indicated that Washington was ready to defend the island militarily.
Biden raised US
“objections” to China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward
Taiwan, which undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the
broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity”, the White House said.
Despite the clash
on Taiwan, the White House indicated it had found some common ground with China
on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — a high priority for Biden who is hoping to
deprive Moscow of its key potential source of international support.
Xi and Biden
“reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can
never be won and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of
nuclear weapons in
Ukraine”, the White House statement said.
China has not
supplied weapons for the war in Ukraine, with Moscow obliged to rely on Iran
and North Korea, according to US officials.
Biden also nudged
China to rein in ally North Korea after a record-breaking spate of missile
tests has raised fears that Pyongyang will soon carry out its seventh nuclear
test.
Biden told Xi
that “all members of the international community have an interest in
encouraging the DPRK to act responsibly,” the White House said, using the
acronym for North Korea’s official name.
Xi’s last
in-person meeting with a US president was in 2019 with Donald Trump, who along
with Biden identified China as a top international concern and the only
potential challenger to US primacy on the world stage.
Although the
meeting was the first time Xi and Biden have met as presidents, the pair have
an unusually long history together.
By Biden’s
estimation, he spent 67 hours as vice president in person with Xi including on
a 2011 trip to China aimed at better understanding China’s then-leader-in-waiting,
and a 2017 meeting in the final days of Barack Obama’s administration.
On Tuesday, Xi
will hold the first formal sitdown with an Australian leader since 2017, Prime
Minister Anthony Albanese announced, following a concerted pressure campaign by
Beijing against the close US ally.
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