Assessing the Biden-Xi meeting in San Francisco
Improvement in tone, but tension over Taiwan, structural conflicts remain.
United States President Joe Biden and China President Xi Jinping held an amicable and workmanlike meeting in San Francisco last week on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ summit.
The two nations agreed to open a presidential hotline, restore military-to-military communications that China had suspended and combat trafficking in the synthetic opioid fentanyl and its precursor chemicals. These were modest wins for the US and had been expected in advance.
Facing an economic slowdown at home, Xi was looking to use the meeting with Biden to stabilize the US-China relationship and help attract US investment and business. Biden was looking for China’s help resolving, or at least not expanding the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel.
The face-to-face event gave Biden and Xi a chance to conduct personal diplomacy and the meeting appears to have laid the ground for future cooperation by China. The two nations are competing in technology development and international trade while jockeying for power and influence around the globe, leaving Asia-Pacific nations attending the APEC summit assessing how their national interests are affected by US-China dynamics.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson described the meeting as “candid and in-depth,” yielding a “San Francisco vision” for developing better US-China ties in the future.
The White House said the two leaders acknowledged efforts “to explore best practices for the relationship” and said “teams” for both sides would “follow-up” with continued discussions on a range of topics.
Moments after the meeting ended, Biden was asked in a press conference whether he still considered Xi a “dictator.”
“Well, look, he is. I mean, he’s a dictator in the sense that he — he is a guy who runs a country that — it’s a communist country that is based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said. “Anyway, we made progress.”
Taiwan
Xi and Biden had substantial discussion on Taiwan and Xi gave Biden a cautionary warning. The Chinese leader said China had no plans for military action against Taiwan in coming years, but Xi discussed conditions under which force could be used, a senior US official told reporters according to Reuters.
Biden said he "stressed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait." He also asked Xi to respect Taiwan's electoral process, the US official said. Taiwan has national elections scheduled in January.
Xi responded: "Look, peace is ... all well and good but at some point we need to move towards resolution more generally," the US official said.
“The Taiwan question remains the most important and most sensitive issue in China-US relations,” Xi told Biden according to the China People’s Daily. “China urges the United States to honor the one-China principle, oppose ‘Taiwan independence,’ stop arming Taiwan, stop interfering in China's internal affairs, and support China's peaceful reunification. China will realize reunification, and this is unstoppable.”
“On Taiwan, President Biden emphasized that our ‘One China’ policy has not changed and has been consistent across decades and administrations,” a White House readout of the meeting said. “He reiterated that the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side, that we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, and that the world has an interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. He called for restraint in the PRC’s use of military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.”
Taiwan Opposition Parties
Taiwan’s two main opposition parties, the Kuomintang and the Taiwan People’s Party, which support talks with Beijing, have agreed to field a joint ticket in the upcoming January 2024 presidential election. They have not settled on joint candidates however amid disputes over how to interpret opinion polls showing which is more popular.
Taiwan Vice President Lai Ching-te, who is the presidential candidate of the Democratic Progressive Party, which supports Taiwan’s continuing independence, has been leading in public opinion polls.
Recent surveys (here and here) have the DPP’s Lai with 33 percent support among likely voters compared to 22 percent for the KMT and 24 percent for the TPP.
Taiwan’s current President Tsai Ing-wen, of the DPP, won elections in 2016 and 2020 with more than 56 percent of the vote.
North Korea Launches Satellite
North Korea successfully used UN-banned ballistic missile technology on November 21 to launch its first spy satellite in orbit, drawing condemnations from the United Nations, the US and allies.
A rocket carrying the satellite blasted off Tuesday night from North Phyongan province and “accurately put the reconnaissance satellite ‘Malligyong-1’ on its orbit,” state-run news agency KCNA reported.
US analysts assessed the successful North Korean launch was a direct result of Pyongyang’s military alliance with Moscow.
“North Korea is profiting handsomely from Russia’s war in Ukraine. By giving weapons and ammunition to Russia, North Korea is receiving not just food and fuel assistance but also military satellite technology and possibly other advanced technology, such as nuclear-powered submarines and ballistic missiles,” the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, said.
The UK Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that North Korea was on track to join Iran and Belarus as the most significant arms suppliers to Russia. North Korea had shipped more than 1,000 steel containers (TEUs) of weaponry to Russia in the past month.
South Korea plans to launch its first domestically built reconnaissance satellite next week.
— William Roberts