WOODSIDE, California: US President Joe Biden met Chinese leader Xi Jinping for the first time in a year on Wednesday for talks that may ease friction between the two superpowers over military conflicts, drug-trafficking and artificial intelligence.
Biden welcomed the Chinese leader at the Filoli estate, a country house and gardens about 48km south of San Francisco, where they will move later for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
In opening remarks, Biden said the US and China had to ensure that competition between them “does not veer into conflict” and manage their relationship “responsibly”. He said issues such as climate change, counter-narcotics and AI demanded their joint attention.
Xi responded by saying that “Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed”.
Xi told Biden a lot had happened since their last meeting a year ago in Bali. “The world has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, but is still under its tremendous impacts. The global economy is recovering, but its momentum remains sluggish.”
He called the US-China relationship “the most important bilateral relationship in the world”, and said he and Biden “shoulder heavy responsibilities for the two peoples, for the world, and for history”.
“For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option,” he said. “It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”
The leaders will be seeking to reduce friction but deep progress on the vast differences separating them may have to wait for another day.
Biden and Xi will discuss a host of issues where the countries are on opposing sides including Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Israel-Hamas war, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea and human rights.
Leaders from the 21-country group APEC – and hundreds of CEOs in San Francisco to court them – are meeting amid relative Chinese economic weakness, Beijing’s territorial feuds with neighbors and a Middle East conflict that is dividing the United States from allies.