Beijing, Washington Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have known each other personally for more than ten years. “I am very happy to see my old friend,” said the Chinese head of state and party when he welcomed the two heads of government at the first virtual meeting. “Maybe I should start this meeting more formally,” joked US President Biden. “But we were never really formal with each other.”
Biden saw Xi on two flat screens in the Oval Office. This in turn sat in the Great Hall of the People, framed by high-ranking representatives of the Communist Party. During the three-hour conversation, attention was paid to details: Biden wore a tie in red, China’s national color. Xi wore a blue tie, the color of the American Democratic Party. The first exchange between Biden and Xi in months was marked by gestures of goodwill, but the topic was also the numerous differences between the leaderships.
According to a statement from the White House, Biden expressed “clear concerns about the conduct in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong and human rights in general.” Human rights groups accuse the Chinese leadership of serious human rights abuses in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang against the Uyghur minority living there. The US President criticized China’s “unfair trade and economic practices” and underlined that the US “firmly opposes” efforts to undermine Taiwan’s status quo.
Xi said the situation in the Taiwan Strait was facing a new round of tension because the Taiwanese authorities had repeatedly tried to “seek independence by relying on the United States” while “some people” were on the American side are interested in “containing China through Taiwan”. This development is very dangerous, it is a game with fire, so Xi, and anyone who plays with fire will get burned.
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Regarding the amalgamation of Taiwan and China aimed at by the Chinese leadership, Xi said they wanted to achieve this “reunification” peacefully, “but if the separatist forces of ‘Taiwanese independence’ provoke and force us or even break the red line, we will take decisive action have to take hold, ”he threatened.
Washington let it be known that it was not interested in an escalation of the great powers. “We need guard rails so that our competition does not degenerate into conflicts and we have to keep our lines of communication open.” Biden defined climate protection, the global energy crisis and overcoming the pandemic as areas of cooperation.
USA: No progress on Taiwan question
Chinese state media followed the meeting closely. The nationalist state newspaper “Global Times” headlined after the end of the conversation that the “rare” and “long” virtual meeting had brought “certainty in bilateral relations”.
A senior White House government official said after the interview. “Both led an open discussion, they quickly deviated from their manuscripts.” Biden had raised human rights “several times” and the US President had “clearly expressed” his concern about Taiwan. “It’s no secret that China has a fundamentally different worldview,” said the official. That became clear at the meeting. “No progress” has been made on the Taiwan issue.
Biden and Xi have only spoken on the phone twice this year, with the meeting on Monday being their first virtual video meeting. Xi has not left China since the beginning of the corona crisis, i.e. for almost two years. He also did not travel personally to the climate summit in Glasgow or the G20 meeting in Rome.
Biden, now 78, and Xi, who is ten years younger, got to know each other better when they were both vice presidents, and they covered thousands of air miles together. But when Biden moved to the Oval Office in January, US-China relations were already at a low point. Not least because of the trade war that Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump had instigated.
“We have concerns, we will express them openly”
Xi entered the meeting strengthened after securing support for a third term last week. Biden, on the other hand, is in a difficult phase: Although he signed a historic infrastructure reform on Monday, his party’s power struggles, the supply chain crisis and inflation are causing his polls to plummet.
As US President, he cannot completely cut off the channels to Beijing. Because for geopolitical challenges such as the conflict with North Korea or Iran, Biden needs Chinese support. At the same time, he has to demonstrate a tough course: The USA has defined the economic rise of China, the dominance of future technologies and military armament as the “greatest national security threat”.
Biden’s signals had a correspondingly changeable effect. “We have to ensure that our countries do not get into a conflict, be it intentionally or unintentionally,” emphasized Biden in the video link. “It’s about simple, uncomplicated competition.” Then he threatened again: “All countries must play by the same rules. We have concerns and we will express them openly. “
The fact that the summit came about on Biden’s initiative reflects new fears of the White House. A scenario that is being played out in Washington: The two world powers could get caught in a spiral of escalation, if only through a chain of circumstances. In fact, there has been little basis for consensus recently, and the few meetings at a higher level have been cool.
The main points of conflict between the US and China
In the weeks leading up to the summit, however, a new kind of pragmatism had emerged. The two largest global CO2 polluters want to coordinate more closely on climate protection in the future. It is true that an agreement that they reached at the UN climate summit in Glasgow does not contain any specific commitments. But in Washington as well as in Beijing it was considered a success that an agreement was reached at all.
The fact that Meng Wanzhou, CFO of the Chinese tech giant Huawei, was allowed to return home from Canada after a deal with the US prosecutor contributed to the relaxation.
In part, the US has also eased its pressure on China. Originally, Trump wanted to force China to give up discriminatory trade practices and parts of its state capitalist economic system. Biden is now putting this goal aside, coupled with the realization that China cannot be forced to make fundamental changes. “In contrast to previous approaches, the Biden administration is not trying to change China through bilateral engagement,” said a senior White House government official. “We don’t think that’s realistic”.
Instead, Washington is promoting a multilateral alliance against China, and the European Union is seen as an important strategic partner. A supply chain cooperation, a tech alliance with the EU and a global infrastructure initiative: all of these initiatives aim to curb the power of China. Since Biden took office, the US has also strengthened its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. This week, Biden’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Gina Raimondo, is touring Asia, visiting Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and India.
According to the expert Matthew Goodman, Asia advisor to the governments of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, the rapprochement between the US and China is likely to be short-lived. “The rifts are so deep that personal sympathies can change little.”
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