USA and China: What remains of the meeting between Biden and Xi

A Chinese and an American meet – and the world watches.

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had not seen each other in person for a year. Baring of teeth in the strait off Taiwan, Beijing’s coziness with Moscow, a stray “weather” balloon in American airspace – the mood between the two superpowers has recently been at least cold. All the more eyes turned to the swanky property south of San Francisco on Wednesday, where the most powerful and second most powerful man in the world met on the sidelines of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation.

Nobody here could expect a brotherly kiss. Instead, as expected, there were plenty of big words and few clear commitments. But the fact that the heads of the Far East and Middle West even spoke to each other was of course not nothing given the diplomatic ice age. But not much either.

Four points that remain hanging after the world leaders’ four-hour chatter.

A little more green

The numbers can only be used to estimate how much power was gathered in the mansion on the California coast. Together, the United States and China have a GDP of more than $43 trillion – far more than the remaining 18 strongest economies in the world combined.

Now it’s not just the industry that’s fuming among the heavyweights. The two countries together cause more than 40 percent of global CO2 emissions. Biden and Xi agreed on Wednesday on further measures in the fight against climate change. For example, they want to work together to reduce methane emissions. These are “small but important steps,” said Bernice Lee from the BBC’s Chatham House think tank.

From an Eastern perspective, however, climate was probably secondary. Like many Western countries, the USA is increasingly curbing the investment interest of domestic companies in the Chinese market – entirely in the spirit of national security. Especially in the technology industry, Washington is relying more and more on home-made products, especially in chip production. This doesn’t suit Beijing at all, as the tech industry is an important driver of the already stumbling economy. In fact, China’s decades-long boom is coming to an end, or so it seems.

Experts see this as one, if not the only, reason why Xi showed up in the USA at all. “The meeting provided Xi with a wealth of photos that he could use in his campaign to lure foreign investors back into the Chinese market,” writes Colleen Cottle of the US think tank Atlantic Council. After meeting Biden, Xi met with influential US entrepreneurs including Apple’s Tim Cook, BlackRock’s Larry Fink and Visa’s Ryan McInerney. The question is who was courting whom here.

Less power to drugs

When the two leaders did get specific, it was on comparatively harmless geopolitical issues. The painkiller fentanyl is a real mass murderer in the USA and, according to Biden, takes more American lives than gun violence. In 2021, seven out of ten of the more than 100,000 drug deaths fell victim to synthetic opioids – all of them fentanyl.

In the fight against the drug epidemic, Biden wants to dry up the sources that are known to be in Mexico – and in the Middle Kingdom. So far, Beijing has denied any guilt, saying that no other country has such a strict anti-drug policy. Biden has now been able to get Xi to promise to curb the export of fentanyl to the USA and chemical raw materials and industrial components. The People’s Republic will take action against specific companies. Whether anything will actually happen remains to be seen. China had previously left similar promises unfulfilled.

Nothing new in the East – Taiwan remains the number one controversial topic

Unsurprisingly, the dispute over Taiwan was the mood killer.

Biden demanded that the People’s Republic must respect the upcoming elections there. Xi, in turn, made it clear that this should not lead to discussions about independence, keyword “red line”. The USA must give up its role as a protective power, stop arming the island state and “support China’s peaceful reunification”. Nothing new in the East.

The US is and remains Taiwan’s most important ally. However, there is no formal military alliance. According to its doctrine of “strategic ambiguity,” Washington leaves it open what US aid would look like if the worst came to the worst. However, Biden made a clear commitment last year to stand behind Taiwan in defense cases. Shortly afterwards, however, his employees rowed back.

After all, high-ranking military personnel from the two nuclear powers should talk to each other again in the future. That hasn’t happened for a year. They want to exchange ideas “on the basis of equality and respect”. Keeping the channels open is important, said Biden. Otherwise, “accidents happen.” Among other things, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will meet his Chinese counterpart – as soon as he is appointed, of course. Xi fired the previous incumbent, Li Shangfu, at the end of October. He hadn’t been seen for two months before.

Silence is silver, speaking is gold

When it came to issues that were literally explosive, Biden and Xi apparently didn’t move one meter towards each other. Now it would have been utopian to expect a solution to the Taiwan conflict from the first sniff in a year. After all, the two of them can’t smell each other again all at once.

After Biden and his guest walked through the lush gardens of the property in photogenic togetherness and then got down to business behind closed doors, the US President spoke of the “most constructive and productive” meeting with Xi since he took office. There wasn’t much to be felt and there was no joint explanation. “Mr President, do you trust Biden?” is said to have. He just smiled and saved himself an answer. No answer is also an answer.

In the end, probably the most important message: People are talking again. What doesn’t sound like much shows how shattered the relationship actually has been over the past few months. At the end of June, just a day after top diplomat Antony Blinken became the first US secretary of state in five years to visit China, his boss called China’s head of state a “dictator.” After Xi’s departure on Wednesday, reporters asked Biden if he stood by that statement. He does it.

So what remained after hours of talking was the promise to talk more. In the future, one person will pick up the phone when the other calls. Anyway. The question arises whether the statesmanlike “We will stay in touch” is just as empty a phrase as it is for normal people.

“Planet Earth is big enough for both superpowers,” Xi said. He is right. But the world has become too small to stay out of each other’s way.

Sources: ““; “”; ; “”