US President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that China has “real problems,” speaking at a fundraiser in San Francisco on the eve of an eagerly awaited meeting in the US city with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).
The leaders of the world’s two largest economies are to meet on the sidelines of the APEC summit in California for their first encounter in a year as trade tensions, sanctions and the question of Taiwan have fueled quarrels between Washington and Beijing.
Biden, who, like Xi, arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday, has characterized the meeting as a chance to right ties that have floundered over the past few years.
Photo: AFP
“President Xi is another example of how re-establishing American leadership in the world is taking hold. They’ve got real problems,” he told a fundraising event late on Tuesday, hours ahead of his talks with Xi.
He did not elaborate.
Earlier, the president told reporters at the White House before heading to San Francisco that the US is “not trying to decouple from China. What we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better.”
Photo: AFP
Asked what he hoped to achieve at the meeting, he said he wanted “to get back on a normal course of corresponding; being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another if there’s a crisis; being able to make sure our [militaries] still have contact with one another.”
However, Biden also said that the US is wary of investing in China due to Beijing’s business practices.
“I’m not going to continue to sustain the support for positions where if we want to invest in China, we have to turn over all our trade secrets,” he said.
Ahead of the meeting between the two leaders, China and the US yesterday pledged to work more closely together to fight global warming, declaring the climate crisis “one of the greatest challenges of our time.”
The announcement further fueled hopes that the two nations could mend relations.
In a joint statement following climate talks in the US, they pledged to make a success of the COP28 UN climate summit.
They also recommitted to the 2015 Paris climate accord goals of holding global warming to “well below” 2°C, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5°C.
“The consensus reached between the US and China is a significant moment ahead of COP28,” said Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, president of the conference set to take place in Dubai at the end of the month.
“It clearly signals that despite global challenges, COP28’s call for climate action is uniting Parties and raising ambition,” he said in a statement.
However, David Waskow, director of the World Resources Institute’s International Climate Initiative, said it was “disappointing that the two nations said nothing about the need to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels this decade, which will be a central issue at the COP28 summit.”
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