President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met virtually for 3 1/2 hours Monday night. The video above shows some of the remarks President Biden made at the meeting. In a press call following the meeting, a senior Biden administration official described the conversations as “respectful and straightforward”, saying the two leaders “had a healthy debate about various issues”.
“They didn’t just stick to the scripts that they had in front of them,” the official said. “They did, at various points, move back and forth between different agenda items, pick up on things that one another said.”
According to the official, those issues included the situation in Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific region, human rights issues and economic issues. When it came to Taiwan, “Biden clearly reaffirmed the U.S. ‘One China’ policy and the precepts on which it’s based,” according to the official. After the meeting between Biden and Xi, a spokesperson with Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan was “paying close” attention to the meeting.
“The Biden administration has repeatedly reiterated that the United States’ commitment to Taiwan is rock solid, and we will continue to pay close attention to the interaction between the United States and China,” Joanne Ou said Tuesday. “And we will continue to promote the global partnership between Taiwan and the United States on the basis of the profound friendship between Taiwan and the United States.”
Regarding human rights issues, “Biden raised concerns about the PRC’s practices in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong,” according to a White House readout of the meeting with Xi. As for economic issues, Biden “was clear about the need to protect American workers and industries from the PRC’s unfair trade and economic practices”.
According to Biden, the meeting with Xi was designed to prevent tensions between the two countries from escalating.
“Our responsibility as leaders of China and the United States is to ensure that the competition between our countries does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended, just simple, straightforward competition,” Biden said Monday. “It seems to me we need to establish some common sense guardrails, to be clear and honest where we disagree and work together where interests intersect, especially on vital global issues like climate change.”
