U.S.-China tensions on display as Xi arrives in San Francisco for Biden summit – National | 24CA News
Chinese President Xi Jinping started his first go to to the United States in six years on Tuesday simply after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing by stressing the necessity for freedoms and rule of regulation.
Xi is on his first go to to the U.S. since 2017. He is because of meet U.S. President Joe Biden at an undisclosed location within the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday morning after which attend the annual summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) discussion board.
His summit with Biden would be the first face-to-face assembly between the U.S. and Chinese leaders in a 12 months and has been billed by U.S. officers as a chance to cut back friction in what many see because the world’s most harmful rivalry.
Xi waved from atop a passenger staircase hooked up to his Air China aircraft after which descended to satisfy U.S. officers ready on the tarmac, together with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns.
He then bought into his Chinese Hongqi, or “Red Flag,” limousine and departed the airport into the town, the place demonstrations are anticipated each for and towards his go to.
Less than two hours earlier, Blinken addressed ministers of the 21-member APEC and careworn the U.S. believed in “a region where economies are free to choose their own path … where goods, ideas, people, flow lawfully and freely.”
Blinken didn’t point out China in his remarks, however his language echoed U.S. rhetoric in recent times during which Washington has accused China of bullying smaller international locations within the Indo-Pacific and making an attempt to undermine what the U.S. and its allies name the prevailing “rules-based” order.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, who with Blinken opened the APEC ministerial session, stated the San Francisco assembly got here at a time of “great uncertainty and challenges” for the area. She famous growing geopolitical tensions, fragile provide chains and a worsening local weather disaster.
Earlier, Biden stated his objective in his talks with Xi can be to enhance the connection with China after a interval of strained ties. He stated he would search to renew regular communications between the 2 superpowers, together with military-to-military contacts.
White House nationwide safety spokesperson John Kirby instructed reporters Biden and Xi would additionally speak concerning the Israel-Hamas battle in Gaza in addition to U.S. efforts to assist Ukraine in its battle to repel Russian invaders.
Economic points will probably be excessive on the agenda.
Biden stated the U.S. doesn’t wish to decouple from China however desires to vary the financial relationship for the higher.
His administration has made a push to “de-risk” some important U.S. provide chains from China as the 2 international locations’ financial and army competitors has grown.
But it has been cautious to guarantee international locations within the area, together with China, that the U.S. doesn’t search full financial separation, a notion that has fueled issues amongst Washington’s companions and allies of a superpower showdown that will upend the worldwide financial system.
The Chinese severed military-to-military contacts with the U.S. after then-House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited democratically ruled however Chinese-claimed Taiwan in August 2022.
Restoring the contacts is a prime U.S. objective to keep away from miscalculations between the 2 militaries.
Relations between the 2 international locations grew significantly frosty after Biden ordered the taking pictures down in February of a suspected Chinese spy balloon that flew over the United States.
Top Biden administration officers have since visited Beijing and met with their counterparts in an effort to rebuild communications and belief.
Several hundred principally pro-China demonstrators carrying Chinese flags gathered exterior the Chinese delegation’s resort forward of Xi’s arrival within the U.S.
Larger protests, together with by rights teams important of Xi’s insurance policies in Tibet, Hong Kong and towards Muslim Uyghurs, are anticipated to assemble close to the summit venue on Wednesday.
As Biden arrived in San Francisco, shortly earlier than Xi was resulting from land, dueling demonstrators greeted the U.S. president’s motorcade from the airport. Some waved Chinese flags and held banners calling for “kindly” and “warm” U.S.-Sino ties. Others held indicators condemning the Chinese Communist Party.
Earlier on Tuesday, a small plane flew circles over the APEC summit venue in downtown San Francisco, trailing a banner that learn “END CCP FREE CHINA FREE HK FREE TIBET FREE UIGHUR,” referring to China’s therapy of Uyghurs, which the Biden administration calls “genocide.”
(Reporting by Michael Martina, Ann Saphir and David Brunnstrom, Trevor Hunnicutt and David Lawder; Editing by Chris Reese and Josie Kao)
