By John Ikani
Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden met on Monday 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.
Biden and Xi greeted each other with a handshake in front of a row of Chinese and US flags at a luxury resort hotel in Bali, Indonesia, where they are attending the G20 summit.
The summit is the leaders’ first face-to-face meeting since Biden took office in January 2021, and comes amid rising tensions over Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that China claims as its territory and has vowed to “reunify”, by force if necessary.
The two countries are also at odds over Hong Kong, trade, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“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 added.
For his part, 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.”
This meeting between the leaders of the US and China is happening on the Indonesian island of Bali – on the eve of a G20 summit.
The G20, or Group of Twenty, is a club of countries whose leaders get together to discuss plans for the global economy. Increasingly, they also touch on other important topics like climate change.
Between them, G20 countries account for 85% of the world’s economic output and 75% of world trade. They also contain two-thirds of the global population.
The members are the European Union and 19 nations – Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the UK and the US. Spain is always invited as a guest.
The summit is also an opportunity for national leaders to meet on the sidelines for one-to-one discussions, in the manner of US President Biden and President Xi of China right now.
