Biden, Xi talk to avoid US-China 'conflict': White House

[reporter2]

Biden, Xi talk to avoid US-China 'conflict': White House

10 Sep 2021

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden talked with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for the first time in seven months on Thursday (Sep 9), urging they ensure that "competition" between the two powers does not become "conflict", the White House said.

During the call, Biden's message was that the United States wants to ensure "the dynamic remains competitive and that we don't have any situation in the future where we veer into unintended conflict", a senior US administration official told reporters.

This was the leaders' first call since February, when they talked for two hours, shortly after Biden took over from Donald Trump.

US-China relations went into a nosedive under Trump, who launched a trade war between the world's number one and two economies. Biden's administration, while urging multilateralism and an end to Trump's "America first" ideology, has kept trade tariffs in place and remains tough on other contentious areas of the relationship with Beijing.

However, the White House signaled that the diplomatic impasse is unsustainable and potentially dangerous, requiring intervention by the leaders in Thursday's call.

"We welcome stiff competition but we don't want that competition to veer into conflict," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters.

The goal of the call was to set out "guardrails" so that the relationship can be "managed responsibly."

Lower level attempts to engage with China have not gone well, especially at an angry March exchange between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top Chinese officials when they met in Anchorage, Alaska.

"We have not been very satisfied with our interlocutors' behavior," the senior official told reporters.

Accusing the Chinese of being mostly "unwilling to engage in serious or substantive" talks, the official said "we don't believe that that is how responsible nations act, especially given the global importance of the US-China competition."

Faced with the impasse, "President Biden understood the importance of engaging President Xi directly", the official said.

According to a readout from the White House after the call, Biden and Xi had "discussed areas where our interests converge, and areas where our interests, values, and perspectives diverge".

NO "BREAKTHROUGHS"

Thursday's call focused on "broad and strategic" issues, with no concrete decisions expected on outstanding issues or setting up a first Biden-Xi summit, the official said.

The list of disagreements between Washington and Beijing is long and growing.

Beyond trade, with the White House official complaining of "China's unfair and coercive trade practices", there is deepening tension over China's claims to Taiwan and numerous islands in the South China Sea.

There are areas where the two powers also find themselves having to cooperate or at least coordinate, including on North Korea's nuclear weapons program and the climate crisis.

But Thursday's call was "not about finding some sort of breakthrough agreements", the senior official said.

It was "about keeping the channels of communication open" and ending previous cycles where the relationship blew hot and cold.

"Our goal is, is to really reach a steady state of affairs between the United States and China," the official said.

Biden, who built a close relationship with Xi while serving as vice president under Barack Obama, clearly has belief in his powers of personal contact when it comes to diplomacy.

He went into the call hoping to bridge the growing US-China divide and "have that sort of discussion. They certainly did in their first phone call in February," the senior administration official said.

[reporter2]

Biden, China’s Xi Jinping Hold First Call in Months

The American president initiated the call as recent high-level U.S.-China meetings have been unproductive, U.S. officials say

Sept. 10, 2021

WASHINGTON—President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone Thursday night in an effort to ease hostilities between the two powers and reset lines of communication after recent high-level meetings were described by U.S. officials as unproductive.

The call was the second time the leaders have spoken since Mr. Biden took office. In the seven months since then, the U.S. has accused China of human rights violations, imposed sanctions and warned businesses about operating in Hong Kong. The two countries have continued to trade barbs rather than cooperate on combating the Covid-19 pandemic.

It came as the Biden administration works to complete a review of its China policy, which includes massive tariffs imposed under former President Donald Trump. Mr. Biden has largely maintained the tougher stance of his predecessor but has also sought to rally allies in confronting China, with mixed results.

Few specifics were given from the U.S. about the conversation, though disagreements range from trade to human rights issues and cyberattacks.

A White House statement said the “two leaders discussed the responsibility of both nations to ensure competition does not veer into conflict.”

An administration official described the tone as “familiar” and “candid,” as the two spoke frequently when Mr. Biden was vice president. But there were no specific requests or outcomes, the official said.

The call lasted about 90 minutes and Mr. Biden made it from the Treaty Room in the White House residence given that it was held at a late hour in Washington.

Mr. Xi largely blamed the U.S. for deteriorating ties but expressed optimism that the two powers could find ways to improve their relationship and work together on issues of global concern, including the Covid 19 pandemic, according to a readout of the call provided by the Chinese embassy in Washington.

The White House didn’t explicitly say whether the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was part of the discussion.

While Beijing was quick to recognize the new Taliban interim government, Biden administration officials have said they hope to convince China to maintain some pressure on Afghanistan’s new rulers until they have proven themselves worthy of international assistance.

The Biden administration has faced global criticism over its handling of the withdrawal, with many close allies outwardly criticizing the delayed, chaotic evacuations that took place when the Taliban took over Kabul in mid-August. The Chinese were quick to jump on those shortcomings, recognizing the new Taliban government.

In a recent phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the U.S. needed to remain involved in Afghanistan, including by helping the country to maintain stability and combat terrorism and violence.

Despite largely contentious relations, the call Thursday night represented an attempt to maintain the relationship, a senior administration official said. The U.S. views competition with China as its top foreign policy concern but also wants to work on common interests—such as climate change—and not let matters spiral into direct conflict.

U.S. officials said Mr. Biden wasn’t seeking a specific outcome on a range of issues but wanted to articulate his viewpoint and engage with Mr. Xi. At home, while both political parties mainly see China as a threat, Mr. Biden is facing pressure from the business community to restart negotiations with China and cut tariffs on imports, saying they are a drag on the U.S. economy.

“The goal to reduce tensions and agree on areas where the two sides need to work together can only really be advanced by the two leaders talking,” said U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President Myron Brilliant.

U.S. officials say that recent talks with Chinese officials haven't yielded much progress, with Chinese interlocutors issuing criticisms and demands that the U.S. side sees as grandstanding for the domestic audience.

A March meeting in Anchorage between Mr. Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and their Chinese counterparts ended with a volley of acrimonious comments from both sides and an assertion by China of its global might. When Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman traveled to China in July, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng said stalemated relations were the fault of the U.S. for treating China as an “imagined enemy.”

Earlier this month, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry, on a trip to China, was told by Mr. Wang that collaboration on climate change couldn't be isolated from the overall state of relations.

The official Chinese readout of the call between Messrs. Biden and Xi explicitly mentioned the term climate change three times, saying cooperation on this matter was possible and could advance as long as both sides respected each other’s concerns and managed their differences.

American and Chinese officials have both talked about a possible face-to-face meeting between the leaders, with one likely opportunity being the Group of 20 nations meeting in Rome in late October. Mr. Xi, however, hasn’t traveled abroad during the Covid-19 pandemic. A virtual meeting is possible, but nothing has been set.

Mr. Biden, who was newly in office when he last spoke directly with his Chinese counterpart, vowed to take a tough approach on China, putting particular emphasis on collaboration with allies—something that the Trump administration didn’t do in pursuing its hard-line policy against Beijing.

While many allies have agreed on confronting China, they have differed over how to do it.

The Biden team also has yet to resolve disagreements among officials over key facets of China policy. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai has signaled that she isn’t rushing to lift Trump-era tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of imports from China, seeing them as negotiating leverage with Beijing. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, meanwhile, has said the tariffs are economically harmful.