The leaders of the two most powerful countries in the world also regularly work from home. With a big grin, US President Biden greeted his Chinese counterpart at the start of the video connection last night.
“I am very happy to see my old friend,” said President Xi Jinping. The two have known each other since they were both vice presidents. Now they are in control and after a long period of mounting tensions they seem to want to take the cold out of the air.
“It is our responsibility as leaders to ensure that competition between our countries, intentionally or unintentionally, does not turn into conflict,” Biden said at the start of the meeting. These usually take place completely behind closed doors. But the first minutes of this conversation were filmed.
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The images show that the Chinese president is also taking a constructive stance. For example, Xi Jinping argues for more mutual communication and cooperation with the US. But when the cameras are gone, the tone changes and it turns to the disagreements.
This can be read in the divergent summaries that China and the US made of the conversation. President Biden expressed concern about Communist Party practices in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong, as well as human rights in general. the White House know.
Differ
Those concerns do not appear in the summary that the Chinese state news agency made. “If you go through both summaries, you will find really remarkable differences between what the countries say has been discussed,” said China correspondent Roland Smid.
This is especially noticeable when it comes to Taiwan. China sees the island on the south coast of China as a rebellious region and threatens a takeover. America strongly opposes this and supports Taiwan and its freedoms such as democracy and independent trade with foreign countries. In addition, Taiwan is a crucial ally in the region for the US.
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Taiwan is the thorny point during the talks. This is also apparent from the various summaries of the conversation. According to the Chinese state news agency, Biden has said that America supports the one-China policy and is against Taiwanese independence.
“But you don’t read that last part about independence at all in the American summary,” says Roland Smid. “It may seem like a small detail, but Taiwan is crucial in US China policy. Biden called on Xi to respect peace and stability in Taiwan. But that is not mentioned at all in the Chinese summary of the consultations.”
The Chinese State Medium Global Times mentions something else. President Xi would have warned Biden against further supporting Taiwanese independence. The Chinese president is said to have called it “playing with fire”. “Whoever plays with fire will burn himself,” President Xi said.
tensions
Even after a conversation of more than 3 hours, there is still great disagreement about the course of Taiwan. The consultations did not result in major agreements or new problems. Nevertheless, according to Roland Smid, the video consultation is special and relevant.
“Simply because Xi and Biden have consulted each other for so long and substantively. Tensions between the US and China have only increased recently. Something that, for example, in the South China Sea, can lead to a mutual conflict in the event of a misstep. With this conversation, the cold seems to be out of the air for a while.”
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friendly atmosphere
President Biden said that fierce competition should be possible without leading to military conflict. The Chinese president went one step further. Xi Jinping suggested that climate is an issue where China and the US can even work well together.
According to Roland Smid, the big winners of the meeting are the Chinese and American companies that trade with each other. “They see that there is an amicable atmosphere between Biden and Xi and that they have room for dialogue. It does not offer full guarantees, but the relative calm that seems to be there now is good for trade.”
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