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Xi Jinping told Joe Biden that China was prepared to work with the new administration of Donald Trump to manage differences in his final meeting with his US counterpart.
The Chinese and US presidents met at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima on Saturday. The Chinese embassy in Washington said Xi told Biden that bilateral ties had seen “ups and downs” over the past four years, but the countries had “engaged in fruitful dialogue and co-operation” and the relationship was “stable on the whole”.
“China is ready to work with the US government to maintain dialogue, expand co-operation and manage differences . . . for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi told his US counterpart, according to the Chinese embassy.
Biden told Xi that the US-China relationship was the most important “alliance”, before correcting himself and saying it was the “most important relationship”, according to remarks recorded by reporters who were in the room for the preliminary greetings before the start of the summit.
“Our two countries cannot let any of this competition veer into conflict,” Biden said in one of his stock phrases when meeting Xi. “Over the past four years I think we’ve proven it’s possible to have this relationship.”
Relations between the US and China plummeted over the past four years, reaching their lowest level in decades when then US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022 and a Chinese spy balloon flew over the US last year. Relations have since stabilised, but the superpowers remain at odds over many issues.
The meeting comes two months before Trump will return as president. In recent days, he has named people with tough stances on China for top positions, including Florida congressman Mike Waltz for national security adviser and Florida senator Marco Rubio for secretary of state.
But experts are waiting to see if Elon Musk — who has become close to Trump and who produces and sells Tesla cars in China — will urge the president to take a softer approach towards Beijing.
While Xi repeated his mantra that China wants to have work with the US, he said “major country competition should not be the underlying logic of the times”. He also pushed back against the idea of decoupling and US measures to deny China advanced semiconductor-related technologies in what is known in Washington as the “small yard, high fence” policy.
“‘Small yard, high fences’ is not what a major country should pursue,” Xi told Biden.
The meeting in Lima was the first between the presidents since they held a summit in San Francisco a year ago at the last Apec forum.
Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the German Marshall Fund, noted that previous Chinese readouts about Xi-Biden meetings included references to private statements by Biden that included reassurances on a number of issues, including that the US does not support Taiwanese independence.
“China’s readout of the leaders’ summit in Peru left out these statements — indeed there was no mention of anything that Biden said to Xi,” said Glaser. “With Biden leaving office, the Chinese know that these reassurances may no longer remain US policy.”
Biden and Xi held bilateral meetings with other Apec leaders ahead of their summit on Saturday afternoon, and both men met their Japanese and South Korean counterparts. Xi also met his counterparts from New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, and Chile. Biden met Lin Hsin-I, Taiwan’s representative to the forum, who invited the US president to visit Taiwan.
In the group photograph from the summit taken on Saturday, Xi appeared front and centre, while Biden stood to the side. All leaders were wearing traditional Peruvian vicuña wool scarves, in keeping with the tradition in which participants sport garments native to the host country.