© AP Photo/ Alex Brandon/TASS
On November 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden held three-hour talks at the G20 summit in Indonesia’s Bali. This has become their first face-to-face meeting as heads of state – before that, they had only talked on the phone. There was one personal meeting of the two in 2015 during Xi Jinping's visit to Washington, but Joe Biden was not yet president of the United States back then. Notably, the latter arrived for the meeting at the Mulia Hotel accompanied by 40 cars and 6 motorcyclists, as the Americans can never get rid of spectacular effects. One can only hope those are backed up by some of Washington's specific action.
During his talks with Xi Jinping, Joe Biden would try to identify the "red lines" in relations with China and prevent a conflict over Taiwan, Bloomberg reported shortly before the meeting. According to the agency's sources, the meeting itself would be held with booth interpretation in the presence of the US and Chinese delegations, without a separate closed-door conversation. And this is what exactly happened.
If we follow the statement by US President's National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the meeting took a month to prepare for and was supposed to entail a warming in relations between Beijing and Washington. Most world media have dubbed negotiations between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden a milestone event of the entire G20 summit in Bali due on November 15 to 16.
By and large, foreign media aren’t all that far out: after all, the two leaders represent the world’s largest economic powers – China and the United States. It is Beijing and Washington that have entered into a powerful confrontation today, which may escalate into an armed conflict with unpredictable effects because of Taiwan. Apparently, Washington is not ready to "surrender" the island and will keep defending its interests to the end. This is at least evidenced by US intention to brief Taiwan on the meeting’s outcome, as the same Sullivan said the day before, according to a Bloomberg report.
Before they met, both leaders expressed readiness for "honest negotiations." In particular, as Biden noted, the United States and China must show that parties are able to overcome differences. He was also hopeful of Washington and Beijing’s key role in solving global problems. "I’m committed to keep lines of communication open between you and me personally, but our governments across the board, because our two countries have so much that we have the opportunity to deal with," Biden said in his opening remarks.
In turn, Xi Jinping proposed raising US-Chinese relations to a "new level". "Our meeting has attracted the world’s attention, so we need to work with all countries to bring more hope to world peace, greater confidence to global stability, and strong impetus to common development," the Chinese leader said. He also urged to take "history as a mirror and let it guide the future."
Interestingly, previous online conversations between the leaders of China and the United States did not bear fruit. The one in Bali showed willingness to get their countries’ relationship back on track. However, wishful thinking simply won't do – specific action is needed, but none of the sides has taken it yet. Perhaps it is for this reason that both Washington and Beijing did not hold out much hope for the meeting. It seems to have yielded no joint statement due to an overall lack of specific agreements, except for US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to Beijing.
It is no secret that the United States has been seriously anxious of China's military activity around Taiwan, rapidly growing nuclear arsenal and refusal to condemn the Russian military operation in Ukraine. In addition, the Pentagon considers China one of America's key military opponents ˗ along with Russia, of course. In turn, Beijing accuses Washington of encouraging and supporting Taiwan forces eager to proclaim the island’s independence, creating hostile groups such as QUAD (USA, Japan, Australia, India) and AUKUS (USA, Australia, Great Britain), and also trying to restrain China by establishing exports control as regards manufacturing the most high-tech chips.
A White House statement released following the bilateral meeting said the United States would "compete vigorously" with Beijing, including by investing in power sources within the country and by joining forces with allies and partners across the globe. The American leader pointed to the need of ensuring that "competition does not veer into conflict."
Xi and Biden also discussed the Taiwan issue. The latter assured his counterpart that Washington's policy towards the island has not changed. According to a White House readout: “On Taiwan, he laid out in detail that our one China policy has not changed, the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side, and the world has an interest in the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.” Xi, in turn, was reported to have told Biden the following: “The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-US relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations.”
Another negotiating point was Ukraine. In particular, both presidents are opposed to the nuclear threats and agree that a nuclear war should never be laucnhed and cannot be won. In this regard, as the Chinese Foreign Ministry noted, Xi Jinping expressed concern about the state of affairs as a whole, and Biden said no negotiations on Ukraine were possible without Ukraine itself.
In conclusion, let’s note that despite all the existing controversies between the United States and China, the mere fact of a meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden seems a victory to many pundits. And still, it has also highlighted the growing gap that interferes with their cooperation, at least on global crises and trade. Today, this is no longer the case, and both countries anticipate a scramble for global primacy. And neither of them is going to give up.
