US Vice President Kamala Harris and People’s Republic of China President Xi Jinping met on Saturday (November 19) for brief talks at the Asia-Pacific (APEC) summit in Bangkok, where Russia, Washington’s other opponent, appeared isolated.
This meeting is a continuation of the momentum initiated by US President Joe Biden and Mr Xi, who pledged during a three-hour meeting in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 on Monday to ease tensions between the two competing superpowers lead respectively.
mmyself Harris repeated the will of “keep lines of communication open to responsibly manage competition between [les deux] pay »according to a White House official.
In Bali and then in Bangkok, Xi, at the height of his power after obtaining a historic third mandate, met many foreign leaders, a sign perceived as a willingness on his part to present himself as a responsible leader, ready to face global challenges .
Official visits in 2023
In a sign of easing, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to visit China in early 2023, which would be the first visit by a senior US official since 2018. Xi Jinping, who hasn’t visited the US since 2017, could , meanwhile, it will make the opposite trip in 2023, at the next Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco in November.
The United States is asking for China’s help to dissuade North Korea from carrying out a nuclear test, increasingly feared by Washington and Seoul after Pyongyang’s recent record number of ballistic missile launches.
The war in Ukraine remains another bone of contention between Washington and Beijing, with China claiming a neutral stance on the Russian invasion, despite calls to publicly condemn Moscow. The final APEC communiqué reiterated this divergence: “Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed [que le conflit] it was causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy”according to the joint statement, which uses the same wording as that of the G20.
Joe Biden did not make the trip to Bangkok, held back by his niece’s wedding in Washington. After Thailand, Kamala Harris is expected on Tuesday in the Philippine province of Palawan, on the shores of the South China Sea, much of which is claimed by Beijing. You will become the highest-ranking American official to go there.
