Biden, Xi kick off virtual meeting with calls to increase communication

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Biden, Xi kick off virtual meeting with calls to increase communication

Nov 15 2021

BEIJING — U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping kicked off a virtual meeting on Tuesday with a positive tone and cordial remarks.

Biden said he hoped to meet face-to-face sometime and that he looked forward to a candid conversation. He said the leaders’ responsibility was to lay out where they disagreed and how they could work together toward climate goals.

Xi said it would be better to meet in person, and called for increased communication.

The Chinese leader also “expressed his readiness to work with President Biden to build consensus and take active steps to move China-US relations forward in a positive direction,” according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Xi emphasized the necessity of a “sound and steady” relationship between the two countries, the press release said.

China’s Vice Premier Liu He, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Vice Foreign Minister Xie Feng joined the virtual meeting, along with Ding Xuexiang, director of the general office of the CCP’s central committee, and Yang Jiechi, director of the committee’s foreign affairs office.

On the U.S. side, attendees included Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Three representatives from the National Security Council also joined: Kurt Campbell, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for the Indo-Pacific; Laura Rosenberger, special assistant to the president and senior director for China; and Jon Czin, director for China.

The video call is the closest communication between the countries’ two leaders since Biden took office in January. Tensions between the two nations had escalated under former U.S. President Donald Trump, beginning with trade and tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of goods.

However, a senior Biden administration official told reporters ahead of the call that tariffs would not likely be on the agenda. The meeting is about U.S. efforts to manage competition with China, not about particular goals or an outcome, the official said.

The high-level meeting is important for ensuring the competition does not lead to conflict, the official said.

Controversy over Taiwan is a point of tension between China and the U.S. Beijing considers the island, which operates its own democratic government, part of the Beijing-based government’s territory.

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Xi and Biden are meeting. There's a lot at stake for their economies

By Julia Horowitz, CNN Business

November 16, 2021

London (CNN Business)Managing America's relationship with its biggest economic frenemy is one of US President Joe Biden's toughest challenges.

So when he holds a virtual summit with President Xi Jinping later on Monday, issues like supply chains, subsidies and tariffs, a pullback in China's vast property sector and the global energy crunch could feature prominently in discussions.

The United States and China remain codependent, as American consumers snap up products manufactured in Chinese factories and companies scramble for parts sourced from Asia. Solving the climate crisis requires China's cooperation, while Wall Street money managers are drawn by the market's potential, even though many have been burned over the past year by a ferocious regulatory crackdown.

With this in mind, Biden is expected to emphasize the areas in which Beijing and Washington can cooperate. But growing tensions over issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and human rights have also driven a wedge between the two countries and their economies, complicating the talks.

"One should not hold out false hope that the Xi-Biden virtual summit will fix the fundamental differences between China and America or change the general trajectory of the rivalry," said Alex Capri, a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation. "The overarching question is whether, under the best of circumstances, the two leaders can try and come up with the rationale for a new kind of 'competitive coexistence.'"

Here are some issues on the economy they could talk about.

Trade and tariffs

Two dozen business groups are putting pressure on the Biden administration to consider removing tariffs on China to help ease surging inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday that such a move is "under consideration."

But it may not happen. While the Biden administration recently reached an agreement with the European Union to ease Trump-era sanctions on aluminum and steel, it's continued to criticize China's trade practices and subsidies for domestic businesses.

The United States has backed the "Phase 1" trade deal former President Donald Trump signed with China in January 2020. In a speech last month, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said China must be accountable for promises made in that agreement. Beijing has not delivered yet on its all its commitments, she said.

Tai also indicated the United States could push China to go even further.

"We continue to have serious concerns with China's state-centered and non-market trade practices that were not addressed in the Phase One deal," Tai said. "As we work to enforce the terms of Phase One, we will raise these broader policy concerns with Beijing."

A senior Biden administration official told reporters on Sunday that supply chain issues and tariffs are not on Biden's agenda for the meeting, but it is possible that Xi will bring them up.

China's property sector

Yellen also said Sunday that the administration is watching the embattled property sector in China and warned of potential global consequences if China's economy were to "slow down more than expected." The country's GDP grew at its slowest pace in a year last quarter.

"It's something that's important, that we're monitoring closely," Yellen said, when asked if she was confident China could control the financial fallout of a real estate slump.

Financial markets were rattled in September after the developer Evergrade warned it could default on its massive debts. That sparked fears of contagion across the real estate industry, which accounts for as much as 30% of China's economic output.

Evergrande has recently managed to make some interest payments and stave off a collapse. But a mountain of debt obligations is coming due over the next year. Several other Chinese developers are in a similar position as demand for properties pulls back.

"China's a real estate sector with firms that are over-leveraged and it's something that China is trying to deal with," Yellen said.

In a recent report, the Federal Reserve warned that "financial stresses in China ... could further strain global financial markets and negatively affect the United States." The Fed pointed specifically to the crisis at Evergrande.

Energy and climate

China and the United States have recently found common ground on the climate crisis, surprising observers at the COP26 climate talks in Scotland with a joint pledge to cut emissions.

"I'm gloomy about the prospects for cooperation on anything, except maybe climate, where their interests coincide," said William Reinsch, a senior adviser at the the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The world's top two economies are also its biggest polluters, and both are feeling the pain of an energy crunch exacerbated by attempts to transition to greener supplies.

Last month, the Chinese government ordered the country's coal mines to "produce as much coal as possible" as winter approaches. Biden, for his part, has urged OPEC to pump more oil to ease soaring gasoline prices that reached a record high in California this weekend.

Neither China, the world's biggest coal consumer, nor the United States signed on to a deal announced at COP26 in which a number of countries committed to phasing out the use of coal. They have said they will phase down its use.

— Jill Disis and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting.

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Biden-Xi virtual summit: US president warns nations must not ‘veer into open conflict’

Video conference between the leaders is the most substantial discussion since Biden took office and comes at a time of high tension

Julian Borger in Washington

16 Nov 2021

Joe Biden has begun a virtual summit with Xi Jinping by saying that they both had a responsibility to ensure the rivalry between their two nations did not “veer into open conflict”.

The video conference meeting between the two leaders, expected to last about two hours, represents their most substantial discussion since Biden took office in January, and comes at a time of particularly high tension. Xi took a conciliatory tone in his opening remarks, calling Biden “my old friend”.

There is growing apprehension of a confrontation over the fate of Taiwan, and over freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. The meeting also comes against a backdrop of global outrage over China’s treatment of its Uyghur Muslim population and Hong Kong, and a proliferation of cyber-attacks the US has blamed on China. There are also deep divisions over what each country should do to mitigate the climate emergency, and the US is increasingly nervous about the rapid development of Chinese conventional and nuclear military forces.

The US president said he hoped the two men would have a candid and forthright discussion “like all of the discussions we’ve had thus far”, and establish “rules of the road” for their future behaviour.

“We need to establish a commonsense guardrail, to be clear and honest where we disagree and work together where our interests intersect, especially on vital global issues like climate change,” Biden, seated at a table at the White House with senior aides, told Xi, who could be seen on a large screen facing the US president. Both leaders had the Chinese and American flags behind them.

“It seems to be our responsibility, as leaders of China and the United States, to ensure that the competition between our countries does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended,” Biden said, saying the two nations should pursue “just simple, straightforward competition.”

In his opening remarks, Xi said: “Although we can’t see each other face to face, this is not bad, either. I feel very happy to see my old friend.”

He echoed Biden’s sentiments about the hopes for the call. “Humanity lives in a global village and we face multiple challenges together,” the Chinese president said. “China and the US need to increase communication and cooperation.”
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“Good to see you, Mr. President and your colleagues. It’s the first time for us to meet virtually, although it’s not as good as a face to face meeting, I’m very happy to see my old friend,” Xi said.

Biden was flanked by his secretary of state Tony Blinken, national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, Kurt Campbell, his Indo-Pacific coordinator, Laura Rosenberger and Jon Czin, senior director for China.

Xi appeared alone on screen for the introductory remarks, but according to an official list the other Chinese participants were Ding Xuexiang, the general secretary of the Communist party, vice premier Liu He, the party’s foreign affairs chief, Yang Jiechi, Wang Yi the foreign minister and his deputy, Xie Feng.

Speaking before the summit began, a senior US official said: “This engagement matters because it’s about setting the terms of the competition in two key areas: one, ensuring that the competition does not lead to conflict … We want to make clear our intentions and our priorities to avoid misunderstandings.

“Second,” the US official said, “this is an opportunity for President Biden to tell President Xi directly that he expects him to play by the rules of the road, which is what other responsible nations do.”

The Chinese embassy in Washington put out a written statement before the summit saying: “China hopes that the US side will work with China to explore how our two major countries get along in the new era based on mutual respect and peaceful coexistence, increase dialogue and cooperation, effectively manage differences and properly handle sensitive issues, in a bid to steer the bilateral ties back on the right track of sound and steady development.”