Biden and China's Xi hold 'expansive and substantive' virtual meeting

President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping telegraphed low expectations for their non-summit Monday night, and in that they delivered.

But the three and a half hour virtual meeting was a step forward in what has become a tense relationship between superpowers. The two leaders balanced predictable disagreements over Taiwan and human rights with “respectful, straightforward and open” discussion aimed to pave the way to future talks, according to a senior administration official.

The two leaders overcame the limitations of a video face-to-face mediated by interpreters and established a connection that the official said included moments in which they “recounted stories back to one another … even quoting each other’s words.”

The meeting produced no concrete deliverables on any of the many issues that bedevil the U.S.-China relationship, but allowed both leaders to underscore their resolve to prevent it from veering into unexpected military conflict.

“We were not expecting a breakthrough and there were none to report [because] this was really about developing those ways to manage the competition responsibly,” the official said. “There were a number of conversations about the long-term work that we need to do together between the United States and China to manage that competition [and] in a number of areas they had a healthy debate about various issues.”

That debate included the two countries’ positions on Taiwan. Biden reaffirmed the U.S. adherence to the One-China Policy and cautioned Xi about any “unilateral changes in the status quo” toward the self-governing island, said the official. Xi responded with his own warning: “If the separatist forces of 'Taiwan independence' provoke and force the issue, or even break through the red line, we will have to take decisive measures.”

Biden’s expressions of concerns about human rights issues in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong predictably fell on deaf ears. “They have a real difference of worldviews” on the subject, the official said. Xi pushed back on Biden by warning against “using human rights to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries.”

Biden urged Xi to fulfill the terms of the bilateral Phase One trade agreement and expressed hope that U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai’s engagement with her counterpart, vice premier Liu He, might move the economic relationship toward a more productive footing.

The two leaders also discussed mutual concerns about regional friction points including North Korea, Iran and Afghanistan. With regard to the faltering Iran nuclear deal, Xi and Biden “compared notes and coordinated a bit ahead of the next round of resumption of the JCPOA conversations later this month,” said the official. Biden also stressed the importance of “transparency” in addressing global health issues and looked beyond the current Covid-19 pandemic to the need to prevent future pandemics, the official said.

Biden declared in the opening minutes of their long-anticipated meeting that the two leaders “have a responsibility for the world as well as for our people” to ensure that bilateral competition “does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended.”

Biden touted his decade-long history of lengthy one-on-one encounters with Xi and said that they had “always communicated with one another very honestly and candidly“ and that they “never walk away wondering what the other man is thinking.”

“All countries have to play by the same rules of the road [and that’s] why the United States is always going to stand up for our interests and values, and those of our allies and partners,” said the U.S. president. “If past is prologue, I am sure that today we'll be discussing those areas where we have concerns — on human rights, on economics [and] to ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Those items were part of what Biden referred to as an “expansive and substantive” meeting agenda.

Xi responded through an interpreter that he was “very happy to see my old friend.” He said the two countries need to “increase communication and cooperation” but didn’t make any specific references in his opening remarks to the issues he intended to raise.

“Humanity lives in a global village, and we face multiple challenges together,” Xi said before reporters watching the opening remarks on the video feed were ushered out of the White House’s Roosevelt Room.

With Biden were Cabinet members including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The U.S. delegation also included Kurt Campbell, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for the Indo-Pacific on the National Security Council, and Laura Rosenberger, special assistant to the president and senior director for China and Taiwan on the NSC.

Xi was accompanied by his trade envoy, Vice Premier Liu He, Foreign Minister Wang Yi and China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi.

Both sides issued firm but conciliatory readouts of the virtual meeting. However, Xi came close to trolling Biden by expressing hopes that he demonstrate "political leadership," an apparent implicit reference to his counterpart’s ongoing struggles over his domestic agenda.

Though the senior administration official reiterated that the U.S. position on Taiwan had not changed, Chinese state media was quick to trumpet that Biden “does not support” Taiwan’s independence. Whether the leaders’ virtual face-to-face serves to dial down rising tensions and military posturing over the self-governing island remains to be seen.