Joe Biden and Xi Jinping meet amid disputes over military and economic issues

For the first time in a year, U.S. President Joe Biden met with Chinese Leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday, potentially reducing tensions between the two giants over military conflicts, drug trafficking, and artificial intelligence.

At the Filoli estate, a rural home and gardens around 30 miles (48 km) south of San Francisco, where they would later travel for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum session, Biden greeted the Chinese president.

Profound progress on the enormous gaps that separate the presidents of the United States and China may have to wait until another day. Still, they will work to ease tensions in what many consider the most significant relationship in the world.

Expectations are low as Biden and Xi debate issues on which the leaders have not been able to agree for a long time, including human rights, North Korea, the South China Sea, Taiwan, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Biden and Xi traveled to San Francisco, where they will attend the APEC conference.

Against the backdrop of Beijing’s territorial disputes with neighbors, a Middle East crisis alienating the U.S. from friends, and relative Chinese economic weakness, leaders of the twenty-one-nation group convene, accompanied by hundreds of CEOs in San Francisco to woo them.

According to experts, Xi will be hoping for a smooth meeting with Biden to demonstrate to those back home who are worried about the economy and declining foreign investment that he can manage ties between the two biggest economies in the world.

Despite attempts to remove homeless people from the streets, San Francisco’s well-planned visit by Xi could come undone. Protesters supporting and opposing China’s ruling Communist Party clogged the route from the airport to the conference venue, an unusual sight for Xi, who last traveled to the U.S. in 2017.

Far from the APEC conference site, the bilateral summit venue provides the leaders a blend of security, tranquility, and seclusion.

In an attempt to save rapidly strained relations, Biden has pursued direct diplomacy with Xi, placing his trust in the personal bond he has built with the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong over a dozen years.

The National University of Singapore’s political science professor, Chong Ja Ian, stated that Mao described the two sides’ tactics as “talk and fight, fight and talk” during the Chinese Civil War.

Chong said, “That is, to talk while building up forces.”

The White House hopes the meeting will pave the way for additional discussions.
Before the meeting, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters, “We’re all expecting that this will be a productive discussion today, and hopefully, a precursor to much more communication and dialogue between our two teams going forward.”

Iran, meddling in elections, and furanone

Biden is anticipated to put pressure on Xi during the meeting to use China’s clout to persuade Iran to refrain from provocative action or to encourage its proxies to get involved in activities that could spark a regional conflict between Israel and Hamas.

He is also anticipated to bring up human rights, the status of American citizens who Washington believes are being wrongfully detained in China, and alleged Chinese efforts to sway international elections.

Officials from the US were looking forward to concrete steps that would bring back staff-level talks between the two countries on a wide range of issues, such as military-to-military communications, reducing the flow of fentanyl, managing trade and climate, and keeping an eye on the development of artificial intelligence technologies.

U.S. officials claim that a large portion of the chemicals used to make fentanyl originate in China.

Before the meeting, the two nations agreed to support a new goal for renewable energy and committed to lowering methane and plastic pollution. However, their efforts to revive climate cooperation were put on hold when former U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, Biden’s 80-year-old economy has performed better than most wealthy countries. He is running for office again.

Despite some disagreements regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, he has rallied the country’s longstanding allies from Europe to Asia to oppose Russia in Ukraine.

Ten years younger than Biden, Xi has tightened control over state leaders, the media, the military, and policy, including amending the constitution. However, the country’s three-decade growth trajectory has been off due to economic issues.

Officials from all across the region anticipate that Beijing will put Washington to the test in the upcoming weeks, capitalizing on what it perceives to be a shift in American attention away from Ukraine and Israel and toward its own goals in the Indo-Pacific.

Biden is anticipated to inform Xi that American commitments in the Indo-Pacific region remain unaltered. China’s actions in the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea, and East China Sea—areas of international dispute—have alarmed its neighbors in recent years.