After the meeting of Mr. XI and Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G20, the exchanges continue to “maintain the open communication lines” between the two superpowers.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
The vice-president of the United States, Kamala Harris, and the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, met on Saturday, November 19, during a brief interview at the Summit of Asia- Pacific (APEC) in Bangkok, where Russia, the other opponent of Washington, seemed isolated.
This meeting is an extension of the dynamics started by the American president, Joe Biden, and Mr. XI, who signed up on Monday at a three -hour meeting held in Bali in Marge of the G20, to appease the tensions between the two competing superpowers which they direct respectively.
M me Harris repeated the desire to “maintain open communication lines to manage the competition between [the two] countries”, according to a White House official.
a Bali then Bangkok, Mr. XI, at the height of his power after obtaining a third historic term, met many foreign leaders, a sign perceived as a desire on his part to present himself as a responsible leader, ready to face the global challenges.
official visits in 2023
Sign of relaxation, the American secretary of state, Antony Blinken, must go to China at the beginning of 2023, which would be the first visit of a senior American official since 2018. Xi Jinping, who did not More visited the United States since 2017, could make the opposite trip in 2023, on the occasion of the next Summit of Economic Cooperation for Asia-Pacific (APEC) in San Francisco, in November.
The United States demands the help of China to dissuade North Korea from carrying out a nuclear test, increasingly feared by Washington and Seoul following a recent record number of ballistic missile launches by Pyongyang.
The war in Ukraine remains another subject of dissension between Washington and Beijing, China claiming a neutral position vis-à-vis the Russian invasion, despite calls to publicly condemn Moscow. The final press release from APEC recalled this divergence: “Most members firmly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed [that the conflict] caused immense human suffering and exacerbated the existing weaknesses in the world economy”, According to the joint declaration, which takes up the same formulation as that of the G20.
Joe Biden did not travel to Bangkok, retained by the wedding of his granddaughter in Washington. After Thailand, Kamala Harris was expected in the Philippine Province of Palawan on Tuesday, by the sea of southern China, a large part of which is claimed by Beijing. She will become the highest American official to go there.