The President of the United States, Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday morning concluded more than four hours of talks with a commitment to stabilise strained bilateral ties and restore some military-to-military communications between both countries.
Africa Today News, New York gathered that the two leaders met on Wednesday for the first time in a year at Filoli Estate, a country retreat about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of San Francisco.
They shook hands, exchanged smiles, and then sat down for discussions that went over two hours.
A working lunch with important officials came next, and then there was a walk through the well-kept gardens.
Writing on social media site X, Biden said he valued the conversation he had had with Xi.
“I think it’s paramount that we understand each other clearly, leader to leader,” Biden wrote. “There are critical global challenges that demand our joint leadership. And today, we made real progress.”
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It was the two leaders’ first face-to-face meeting in a year and it coincided with the annual summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) a short drive away in San Francisco.
“Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed,” Xi told Biden.
Officials on both sides of the Pacific set expectations low ahead of the meeting, given longstanding disagreements over issues from Taiwan to the South China Sea, the Israel-Hamas war, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, North Korea and human rights.
In the event, they reached an agreement to reopen military contacts that were cut after then-House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, a self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own, in August 2022.
A US official told reporters there was significant back and forth between the two leaders over Taiwan, with Biden chiding China over its massive military build-up around the island, and asking it to respect the territory’s electoral process. Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for January, with William Lai, the current vice president and a man Beijing has labelled a “separatist” leading opinion polls.
Xi, meanwhile, stressed the island was part of China.
‘The US side should … stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification,’ Xi told Biden, according to China’s Foreign Ministry. ‘China will realise reunification, and this is unstoppable.’
Cooperation between the US and China, which make up the world’s two largest economies, remains vital for progress on global issues such as climate change. But both sides have expressed mounting frustration with the other, disagreeing over issues such as technology and global politics.
Washington has accused China of offering Russia an economic lifeline as Moscow continues its war in Ukraine.
The two sides have also differed on the Middle East, where China has called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas. The US, meanwhile, has thrown its support behind Israel and used its position on the United Nations Security Council to veto calls for a ceasefire.