Chinese leader Xi Jinping presented an amicable China ready to improve ties with the United States in a landmark meeting with US President Joe Biden Wednesday,\u00a0marking a noticeable shift in tone for Beijing as it looks to minimize friction with Washington. <\/p>\n
Whether that shift is a lasting one for the contentious relationship will be put to an immediate test, however, by comments made by Biden during a solo press conference after the meeting. There, the President reiterated his view that Xi is a \u201cdictator,\u201d after being asked by a reporter whether he stood by a comment saying as much this past June. <\/p>\n
At that point, Beijing reacted with vitriol, with the remark seen as casting a shadow over tentative progress in advancing dialogue between the two sides following a visit from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. <\/p>\n
When asked about Biden\u2019s latest comment at a Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday, a spokesperson called it \u201cextremely erroneous\u201d and an \u201cirresponsible political maneuver, which China firmly opposes.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat needs to be pointed out is that there will always be some people with ulterior motives attempting to undermine China-US relations. They will not succeed in doing so,\u201d spokesperson Mao Ning said. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s still unclear whether there will be any further reaction this time, but the response comes as <\/strong>China\u2019s signaling around the San Francisco Bay Area meeting between Xi and Biden has marked a shift away from its hardline position on the United States. This softening comes as China grapples with a troubled economy and is keen to highlight Xi as a powerful and capable world leader. <\/p>\n According to statements from both the US and China Wednesday, the two sides agreed to restore military communications and to combat the flow of fentanyl from China to the US during several hours of \u201cconstructive\u201d meetings. <\/p>\n China labeled the talks as \u201cpositive\u201d and \u201ccomprehensive\u201d \u2014 while also highlighting Xi\u2019s efforts to spell out Beijing\u2019s non-negotiables such as its position on Taiwan and perceived American efforts to contain China\u2019s rise. <\/p>\n On Chinese state media and across social media platforms, where the hashtag #Planet-Earth-Is-Big-Enough-For-Both-China-And-The-US was trending, the broad perception appeared to be of a job well done. <\/p>\n Chinese state broadcaster CCTV highlighted how Biden invited Xi for a walk around the leafy estate where the meeting took place and that the American leader \u201cpersonally escorted him to his car to bid goodbye\u201d \u2014 a detail that was also highlighted in another top-trending hashtag on Chinese social media. <\/p>\n The positive coverage of the event was a break from the typical rhetoric critical of the US that often plays across Chinese state and social media. Anti-US rhetoric has been a significant theme boosting growth in Chinese nationalism as tensions flared between the two in recent years. <\/p>\n The optics of a warm welcome and <\/strong>the display of a commanding presence next to Biden are critically important for Xi, who analysts say was not only keen to stabilize a complicated relationship at a time of economic weakness, but also to present himself to his domestic audience as skillfully helming China\u2019s foreign affairs. <\/p>\n Xi\u2019s visit came as the Chinese economy struggles with a property market crisis, high local government debt and record youth unemployment. At the same time, crackdowns across several sectors have pummeled business confidence and led many to question what opportunities remained in China. <\/p>\n \u201cThese challenges are tremendous,\u201d said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, who noted that in California, Xi wanted to show\u00a0viewers back home\u00a0his \u201cleadership capacity in the foreign affairs arena\u201d and that he is highly regarded in America and a world leader on par with Biden. <\/p>\n A press conference with China\u2019s Foreign Minister Wang Yi in California following the bilateral meeting also underscored some of those optics. <\/p>\n Wang noted that Biden sent a \u201cseparate invitation to President Xi Jinping specifically to hold a heads of state meeting,\u201d unlike other bilateral meeting arrangements happening during\u00a0the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum\u00a0that Xi and other leaders from across the Pacific are in town to attend. <\/p>\n \u201c(The Xi-Biden meeting) is sure to become a milestone \u2026 and a major event in today\u2019s international relations,\u201d Wang said, pointing out that the four-hour face-to-face talks were held \u201camidst the backdrop of a critical stage in China-US relations.\u201d <\/p>\n Xi also took a conciliatory tone speaking at a dinner event in front of American CEOs later that day. <\/p>\n He told the audience the most fundamental question shaping US-China relations is whether they are rivals or partners. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we regard each other as the biggest rival, the most significant geopolitical challenge and an ever-pressing threat, it will inevitably lead to wrong policies, wrong actions and wrong results,\u201d Xi told an audience that included Apple CEO Tim Cook and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. <\/p>\n \u201cChina is willing to be a partner and friend of the United States,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n While it helped to advance dialogue and cooperation, the meeting was also a chance for both sides to highlight their differences \u2014 and showed areas where they did not reach consensus, which analysts say will continue to define their contentious relationship. <\/p>\n And even within areas where they two sides did come to agreement, there remains fragile ground. <\/p>\n China\u2019s announcement of the restoration of military communications, which the Biden administration had long pushed for, said those would resume \u201con the basis of equality and respect.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWhat that means is in the future anytime China is annoyed with anything the US does, China can say it\u2019s cutting off military-to-military dialogues again and blame it on the US (for) no longer making China feel \u2018respected,\u2019\u201d said Wen-Ti Sung, a Taiwan-based fellow with the Atlantic Council\u2019s Global China Hub. <\/p>\n \u201c(This) undermines the basis of the talks\u2019 resumption and existence,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n On Taiwan, the self-ruling democracy \ufeffthat China\u2019s ruling Communist Party claims, Xi urged the US to stop arming the island and to support China\u2019s \u201cpeaceful reunification,\u201d according to China\u2019s readout of the meeting released by state media. <\/p>\n \u201cChina will eventually achieve reunification, and will inevitably achieve reunification,\u201d Xi was quoted as saying \u2014 another line that was also trending on Chinese social media following the meeting. <\/p>\n Biden, for his part, reaffirmed the long-standing American position on Taiwan and its opposition to any unilateral changes to the status quo, saying <\/strong>cross-strait differences must be \u201cresolved by peaceful means,\u201d according to a readout from the White House. <\/p>\n Xi also called on the US to \u201cnot scheme to suppress or contain China,\u201d in an apparent reference to America\u2019s strengthening of its alliances in Asia and what Beijing sees as efforts to stymie its economic development with trade and investment restrictions <\/strong>on high tech. Washington says those curbs are intended to protect its national security against an assertive and authoritarian China. <\/p>\n \u201cBoth sides should understand each other\u2019s principles and bottom lines,\u201d Xi added. <\/p>\n The deep concerns each has about the other\u2019s intentions are unlikely to be soothed after one meeting. How those agreements are executed in the weeks and months to come say much about whether China and the US are both committed to lasting stability. <\/p>\n \u201cThe meeting indicates that the US-China relationship is not going to further worsen in the next year, but will it rebound very quickly and become significantly warmer very soon? I would say no,\u201d said Liu Dongshu, an assistant professor focusing on Chinese politics at City University of Hong Kong. <\/p>\n \u201cOf course, Xi Jinping wants better US-China relations, but (Beijing) realizes \u2026 the fundamental fact <\/strong>(is) that the US wants to contain China, so their expectation is that warmer relations are good, but as long as they don\u2019t get worse, they can accept that,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n One immediate indicator of how relations will progress may be seen in any further response from Beijing to Biden\u2019s \u201cdictator\u201d comment, and whether its state media and social media platforms continue gloss over the comment to <\/strong>focus on the positive outcomes from Wednesday. <\/p>\n Biden himself seems to indicate hope that the two can work through their differences as he noted\u00a0that \u201c(Xi) is a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is communist\u201d and that the Chinese government \u201cis totally different than ours.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cAnyway,\u201d he added. \u201cWe made progress.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Chinese leader Xi Jinping presented an amicable China ready to improve ties with the United States in a landmark meeting with US President Joe Biden Wednesday,\u00a0marking a noticeable shift in tone for Beijing as it looks to minimize friction with Washington. Whether that shift is a lasting one for the contentious relationship will be put <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Xi\u2019s optics<\/h2>\n
\u2018Bottom lines\u2019<\/h2>\n