Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden have met for long-awaited talks that come as relations between their countries are at their lowest in decades, marred by disagreements over a host of issues from Taiwan to trade.
The two leaders, holding their first in-person talks since Biden became president, met on Monday on the Indonesian island of Bali ahead of a Group of 20 (G20) summit that is set to be fraught with tension over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden and Xi shook hands in front of a row of Chinese and US flags as they met at the luxury hotel Mulia on Nusa Dua bay in Bali.
“The world has come to a crossroads,” Xi said vowing a “candid” discussion of issues that have riven relations between the world’s two leading powers.
“The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship,” he said.
For his part, Biden greeted Xi with a smile that belied the growing competition between the nation that has defined the last century and a rival that seeks to define the next one.
Biden said he wanted the US and China to “manage our differences, prevent competition from becoming conflict.”
On the eve of his meeting with Xi, Biden told Asian leaders in Cambodia that lines of communication with China would remain open to prevent conflict but that the talks were expected to be tough.
Biden told reporters that he had “always had straightforward discussions” with Xi, and that has prevented either of them from “miscalculations” of their intentions.
“I know him well, he knows me,” Biden said. “We’ve just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us, going into the next two years.”
Biden arrived in Bali on Sunday night, as his Democratic Party retained their control of the Senate after performing better than expected in the midterm elections.
Xi, who secured an unprecedented third term at last month’s Communist Party Congress, is China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.(Aljazeera)