chinese president visit to usa

China’s Xi Jinping arrives in US ahead of summit with Joe Biden

Xi is on his first visit to the US in six years as Washington looks to cool tensions with Beijing.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has arrived in the United States for his first visit in six years, after US President Joe Biden said his goal in their bilateral talks this week was to restore normal communications with Beijing, including military-to-military contacts.

Xi is due to meet Biden near San Francisco on Wednesday morning US time, before attending the annual summit of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping.

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The summit will be their first face-to-face meeting in a year and follows months of high-level meetings to prepare the ground, after tensions between the two countries spiked over issues from trade to human rights and the pandemic.

Speaking ahead of his departure, Biden said his goal was simply to improve the bilateral relationship.

“We’re not trying to decouple from China. What we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better,” Biden told reporters at the White House before heading to San Francisco.

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”.

Xi waved from the door of his Air China plane before walking down the steps to meet US officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns, who were waiting on the tarmac.

He is on his first visit to US since 2017 when he met then president Donald Trump.

China, which regularly talks about “red lines” on issues such as the self-ruled island Taiwan, which it claims as its own and its expansive claims in the South China Sea , has been more circumspect about its expectations for the summit.

A spokesman for China’s foreign ministry mentioned only “in-depth communication” and “major issues concerning world peace” when asked about the meeting this week.

Nevertheless, analysts said the very fact the talks were taking place was significant.

“The importance of the much-expected meeting between President Biden and President Xi in San Francisco cannot be understated, no matter the likely shallowness of the outcomes,” Alicia Garcia Herrero of investment banking group Natixis wrote in an analysis ahead of the summit.

Protests expected

Crowds gathered along the route of Xi’s motorcade to the luxury hotel where the Chinese delegation is staying.

Some held signs that read “End CCP,” the initials of Chinese Communist Party. Another sign read “Warmly Welcome President Xi Jinping” and was stuck to concrete bollards.

Outside the hotel, several hundred Beijing supporters waved US and Chinese flags as they waited and played the patriotic song Ode to the Motherland through loudspeakers

Scuffles broke out with the few anti-Xi protesters who were there, but police quickly intervened to restore calm.

Pro-China and anti-China demonstrators also gathered near the Moscone Center, the venue where many of the APEC meetings were being held. Larger protests, including by rights groups critical of Xi’s policies in Tibet, Hong Kong and towards Muslim Uyghurs, are expected near the summit venue on Wednesday.

Xi and Biden are expected to meet at Filoli Estate, a country house museum about 40km (25 miles) south of San Francisco, the Associated Press news agency reported, citing three senior officials in the US administration who requested anonymity. The venue has not yet been confirmed by the White House and Chinese government.

While economic issues are likely to be high on the agenda of the meeting, including steps to curb the production of the potent synthetic opioid drug fentanyl , increasing geopolitical tensions are likely to dominate discussions.

White House National Security Spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that Biden and Xi would talk about the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza as well as Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine .

While Washington has sought to reset ties with China, it has also signalled that will not be at the expense of key US concerns.

Biden is “not going to be afraid to – to confront where confrontation is needed on issues where we don’t see eye to eye with President Xi and the PRC,” Kirby said, using the initials for the People’s Republic of China.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told APEC ministers that the US believed in “a region where economies are free to choose their own path … where goods, ideas, people flow lawfully and freely”.

Blinken did not mention China by name, but his language echoed US rhetoric in recent years in which Washington has accused China of bullying smaller countries in the Asia Pacific and trying to undermine what the US and its allies call the “rules-based” international order.

China Brief: Xi Gears Up for Long-Awaited U.S. Trip

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Xi Gears Up for Long-Awaited U.S. Trip

The chinese leader will meet biden on the sidelines of a san francisco summit in his first visit to the united states since 2017..

• Foreign & Public Diplomacy
• United States
• James Palmer

Welcome to  Foreign Policy ’s China Brief.

The highlights this week: The White House confirms Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States later this month, the Smithsonian National Zoo’s giant pandas depart Washington, and another Chinese financial executive faces a corruption investigation.

Sign up to receive China Brief in your inbox every Tuesday.

Xi’s U.S. Visit Confirmed

The White House has officially confirmed Chinese President Xi Jinping’s first visit to the United States since 2017, although the diplomatic details have yet to be hammered out. Xi will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco later this month—a long-anticipated appearance, even if the specifics aren’t yet guaranteed.

The APEC summit starts on Nov. 11, but Xi may fly in later; the leaders’ meeting is on Nov. 17. Given events during Xi’s visit to South Africa in August, where he unexpectedly missed an important speech—perhaps after becoming ill in his travels—the Chinese leader may also build an extra day or two in to his U.S. visit. The Chinese Consulate in San Francisco is already organizing diaspora groups to welcome Xi to the city with fanfare.

Xi will meet U.S. President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the APEC summit, which will mark their first time together in person since a relatively amiable meeting in Bali, Indonesia, during the G-20 summit a year ago. The U.S.-China relationship was already bad then, but it suffered in the months afterward—especially during the spy balloon crisis . The Biden administration has since engaged in a lot of diplomatic repair work, with mixed reception in China.

What does each side want out of the Xi-Biden meeting? China’s priority is likely its stumbling economy. Geopolitical tensions manifest in China as xenophobic crackdowns on foreign businesses and in the United States as growing restraints on technology exports to China; the situation has made U.S. firms increasingly wary of doing business in China. That isn’t the main burden on the Chinese economy—a collapsing real estate market and a local government debt crisis are—but any relief helps.

The United States will prioritize security talks, focusing on nuclear arms control and military-to-military communication . U.S. diplomats fear that a more confrontational attitude toward China, including breaking off some channels due to tensions over Taiwan, could lead to a clash neither side wants. The frequency of near-misses both at sea and in the air of late has augmented those concerns, especially given continuing tensions around Philippine naval activity in the South China Sea.

China has an obvious interest in avoiding an accidental war with the United States, but aggressive nationalism is still de rigueur in Chinese military and security circles, and backing down is hard. One working model here for both Beijing and Washington may be China’s restored relationship with Australia, where a change of government allowed for a reset.

After a quarrel sparked by Australia’s measures against Chinese political interference and a 2020 call for an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, China targeted Australia with an economic coercion campaign similar to those it used against Japan, South Korea, Lithuania, Norway, and others. But the Australian economy shrugged off Chinese hostility as the country diversified its soaring exports ; the coercion campaign failed.

China has since backed down from its bans on Australian coal and other imports, as well as releasing Australian journalist Cheng Lei , who was detained on national security charges in August 2020, at the nadir of relations. A recent visit to China by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was full of smiles and new agreements. It seems like an Australian victory, although the Australian government also put behind-the-scenes pressure on both Australian intelligence and strategy think tanks to go a little softer on Beijing.

Yet Canberra is in a strikingly different geopolitical position from the United States. As fierce as Australian domestic politics can be, it does not compare to the allegations thrown around Washington about politicians’ supposedly treacherous connections to Beijing. Nor does Australia occupy anything close to the U.S. place in the Chinese public psyche. The conflicts between China and the United States aren’t going away, even if they are managed more carefully.

What We’re Following

Pandas depart Washington. As Xi prepares to arrive in the United States, more beloved figures of Chinese diplomacy have left Washington: the Smithsonian National Zoo’s giant pandas . First brought to the United States in 1972, the animals—always technically on loan from China—represented a hope for friendship between the two countries that now seems distant.

China has long employed panda diplomacy as part of a softer approach to the world than the so-called wolf warrior diplomacy that has come to dominate under Xi, but by next year there may be no pandas left in any U.S. zoos (and possibly Australian ones). The panda has also become part of China’s self-image, even representing the country in its own domestic media —sometimes as strong, powerful, and resistant.

However, the association of the hapless bear and the Chinese nation is recent: The rare panda was basically absent from the popular consciousness before the 20th century and not often depicted in art. The arrival of the panda Chi-Chi at the London Zoo in 1958 brought the animals global attention, and Beijing picked up on it—along with the World Wildlife Fund’s adoption of the panda as a symbol of environmental protection in 1961.

A quiet funeral. Former Chinese Premier Li Keqiang’s funeral passed without incident , thanks in part to restrictions on mourning. (As I noted last week, he also wasn’t a particularly popular figure in the first place.) Nevertheless, Li seems to have become a temporary symbol for Chinese people still holding out hope that the country can return to the days of economic and perhaps even political reform, since he was seen as a more technocratic figure than Xi.

There remains some skepticism about the claim that Li died of a heart attack—perhaps reflective of how much China’s urban upper-middle class has come to distrust the Chinese Communist Party’s word.

FP’s Most Read This Week

• The Storm of Dissent Brewing in the State Department by Robbie Gramer
• Ehud Barak on Israel’s Next Steps by Ravi Agrawal
• Why the Global South Is Accusing America of Hypocrisy by Oliver Stuenkel

Tech and Business

Executive disappearances. This week, Chinese authorities opened a corruption investigation into Zhang Hongli (also known as Lee Zhang), a former executive vice president at the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, one of the country’s largest state banks. He is just one in a series of financial figures to be brought down as part of sector-wide investigations in the last two years.

With experience at Goldman Sachs, Zhang was once a rising star in the industry who played a key role in building dubious links with foreign financial institutions and was close to the family of former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao . (Wen’s billionaire wife, Zhang Peili, built a small empire of her own while her husband was in power.)

Meanwhile, Chen Shaojie, the head of a major gaming platform, was reportedly disappeared by authorities a few weeks ago. It’s common for business figures to be detained for weeks or longer, such as the still-missing banking executive Bao Fan. Such measures can reflect party intimidation of a sector, genuine investigations, or officials’ attempts to seize control of businesses.

Gallup leaves China. The polling and consultancy group Gallup has become the latest foreign firm to leave China, under pressure from authorities who seem increasingly intolerant of independent investigation of Chinese public opinion. As global opinion of China has declined, foreign polling firms have come under attack from Chinese media.

That is a big problem. Chinese officials’ own grasp of what’s happening in China is often weak, and public opinion is especially hard to gauge in a heavily censored and politically threatening environment. The more independent investigation gets shut down, the less the world knows.

James Palmer is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy . Twitter:  @BeijingPalmer

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Readout of President Joe   Biden’s Meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of   China

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. today held a Summit with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in Woodside, California.  The two leaders held a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral and global issues including areas of potential cooperation and exchanged views on areas of difference. 

President Biden emphasized that the United States and China are in competition, noting that the United States would continue to invest in the sources of American strength at home and align with allies and partners around the world.  He stressed that the United States would always stand up for its interests, its values, and its allies and partners.  He reiterated that the world expects the United States and China to manage competition responsibly to prevent it from veering into conflict, confrontation, or a new Cold War.

The two leaders made progress on a number of key issues. They welcomed the resumption of bilateral cooperation to combat global illicit drug manufacturing and trafficking, including synthetic drugs like fentanyl, and establishment of a working group for ongoing communication and law enforcement coordination on counternarcotics issues. President Biden stressed that this new step will advance the U.S. whole-of-government effort to counter the evolving threat of illicit synthetic drugs and to reduce the diversion of precursor chemicals and pill presses to drug cartels.

The two leaders welcomed the resumption of high-level military-to-military communication, as well as the U.S.-China Defense Policy Coordination Talks and the U.S.-China Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings.  Both sides are also resuming telephone conversations between theater commanders.

The leaders affirmed the need to address the risks of advanced AI systems and improve AI safety through U.S.-China government talks.

The two leaders exchanged views on key regional and global challenges.  President Biden underscored the United States’ support for a free and open Indo-Pacific that is connected, prosperous, secure, and resilient.  The President reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to defending our Indo-Pacific allies.  The President emphasized the United States’ enduring commitment to freedom of navigation and overflight, adherence to international law, maintaining peace and stability in the South China Sea and East China Sea, and the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula .

President Biden reaffirmed that the United States, alongside allies and partners, will continue to support Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression, to ensure Ukraine emerges from this war as a democratic, independent, sovereign, and prosperous nation that can deter and defend itself against future aggression.  Regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, the President reiterated U.S. support for Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorism and emphasized the importance of all countries using their influence to prevent escalation and expansion of the conflict.

President Biden underscored the universality of human rights and the responsibility of all nations to respect their international human rights commitments. He raised concerns regarding PRC human rights abuses, including in Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong.  On Taiwan, President Biden emphasized that our one China policy has not changed and has been consistent across decades and administrations.  He reiterated that the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side, that we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, and that the world has an interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.  He called for restraint in the PRC’s use of military activity in and around the Taiwan Strait.  President Biden also raised continued concerns about the PRC’s unfair trade policies, non-market economic practices, and punitive actions against U.S. firms, which harm American workers and families.  The President emphasized that the United States will continue to take necessary actions to prevent advanced U.S. technologies from being used to undermine our own national security, without unduly limiting trade and investment. 

The President again emphasized that it remains a priority to resolve the cases of American citizens who are wrongfully detained or subject to exit bans in China.  

The two leaders reiterated the importance of ties between the people of the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and committed to work towards a significant further increase in scheduled passenger flights early next year, in parallel with actions to restore full implementation of the U.S.-China air transportation agreement, to support exchanges between the two countries. The two leaders also encouraged the expansion of educational, student, youth, cultural, sports, and business exchanges.

The two leaders underscored the importance of working together to accelerate efforts to tackle the climate crisis in this critical decade.  They welcomed recent positive discussions between their respective special envoys for climate, including on national actions to reduce emissions in the 2020s, on common approaches toward a successful COP 28, and on operationalizing the Working Group on Enhancing Climate Action in the 2020s to accelerate concrete climate actions. President Biden stated that the United States stands ready to work together with the PRC to address transnational challenges, such as health security and debt and climate finance in developing countries and emerging markets.

Building on the November 2022 meeting in Bali where they discussed the development of principles related to U.S. – China relations, the two leaders acknowledged the efforts of their respective teams to explore best practices for the relationship.  They stressed the importance of responsibly managing competitive aspects of the relationship, preventing conflict, maintaining open lines of communication, cooperating on areas of shared interest, upholding the UN Charter, and all countries treating each other with respect and finding a way to live alongside each other peacefully. The leaders welcomed continued discussions in this regard.

The two leaders agreed that their teams will follow-up on their discussions in San Francisco with continued high-level diplomacy and interactions, including visits in both directions and ongoing working-level consultations in key areas, including on commercial, economic, financial, Asia-Pacific, arms control and nonproliferation, maritime, export control enforcement, policy-planning, agriculture, and disability issues.

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China's top diplomat to pay rare US visit ahead of potential Xi trip

Washington (AFP) – China's top diplomat will pay a rare visit to Washington this week, the United States announced Monday, paving the way for a potential visit by President Xi Jinping aimed at keeping tensions in check.

Issued on: 24/10/2023 - 00:07 Modified: 24/10/2023 - 10:06

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the highest-ranking Chinese official in the US capital in nearly five years, will visit from Thursday through Saturday against a backdrop of friction over trade, Ukraine, the Middle East, Taiwan and China's assertive actions at sea near the Philippines.

A senior US official said the trip was part of efforts between the world's two largest economies to "responsibly manage our competition."

"We continue to believe that direct face-to-face diplomacy is the best way to raise challenging issues, address misperception and miscommunication, and explore working with the Chinese where our interests intersect," he said on customary condition of anonymity.

Beijing Tuesday confirmed the dates of the visit and expressed the hope it would help put strained ties "back on track."

Wang "will conduct in-depth exchanges of views with US leaders on China-US relations and international and regional issues of common interest," foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a regular briefing.

The top diplomat will "convey China's principles and positions and legitimate concerns about China-US relations," she added.

Beijing hopes Washington will work with China to "strengthen communication and dialogue, expand practical cooperation, properly manage differences, and jointly push China-US relations back on (the) track of healthy and stable development," she added.

Wang will be returning a visit in June to Beijing by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was the highest-ranking US official to travel to China since 2018.

Blinken huddled for 11 hours with the top Chinese leadership including Xi. Diplomats say Wang will be expecting a similar meeting with President Joe Biden, who is in Washington this week.

Biden, who last saw Xi last November on the sidelines of G20 talks in Bali, has invited China's leader to travel next month to San Francisco where the United States will host an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

Asked if Wang's visit will formalize a visit by Xi, another US official said that Biden "has stated multiple times that he hopes to see President Xi in the near future" and declined further comment.

Both sides have expressed an interest in recent months in avoiding conflict. Xi, earlier this month receiving Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, said the US-China relationship "will determine the future and destiny of mankind."

But tensions have repeatedly soared, including after China carried out major military exercises near Taiwan, the US-backed democracy claimed by Beijing, following actions by US lawmakers.

The Philippines, a US ally, on Monday accused China of deliberately hitting its boats on a resupply mission in contested waters, leading Beijing to accuse Manila of "false information."

Biden's national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, on Monday called his Philippine counterpart to voice support after China's "dangerous and unlawful actions."

Sullivan will also meet Wang in Washington, officials said.

Meeting allies

In a strategy also followed ahead of Blinken's trip, the Biden administration is engaging US allies before its talks with China.

Biden on Wednesday will welcome Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for a state visit, weeks before Albanese pays his own visit to China as once-frosty ties recover.

In China's own show of friends, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Beijing last week in one of his first trips since invading Ukraine.

China has offered moral support to Russia but, according to US officials, has stopped short of full-fledged military support to Moscow following US warnings.

China and the United States more recently have sought diplomatic advantage against each other over the outbreak of violence in the Middle East.

Blinken, on a visit to the Middle East, telephoned Wang to ask China to exert pressure on Iran, which backs Hamas.

China in turn has criticized US support for Israel and denounced the veto of a UN Security Council resolution by the United States, which wanted a call for Israel's right to defend itself.

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China expert, present at Xi visit to US, aims to cool tensions

By linda b. glaser college of arts and sciences.

A Cornell expert on U.S.-China relations was among the attendees of the dinner following President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s historic summit on Nov. 15 in San Francisco.

At the dinner, Xi chose to deliver the friendliest of the three versions of the speech prepared for him, reflecting “a big change in tone from last year in U.S.-China relations,” said Jessica Chen Weiss , the Michael J. Zak Professor for China and Asia-Pacific Studies in the Department of Government in the College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty member in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy.

“The tone set by Xi helps tilt the internal balance in China toward those who would favor continued engagement and opening,” said Weiss, who is also director of the Levinson China and Asia-Pacific Studies Program in A&S. “Statements by President Biden and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo also sent an important signal that there is still not just room but benefit to interactions.”

A key thought leader on workable strategies for China, Weiss has long called for a lowering of the temperature in relations between China and the United States. She co-authored an article, “Taiwan and The True Sources of Deterrence: Why America Must Reassure, Not Just Threaten, China,” published Nov. 30 in Foreign Affairs, that aims to contribute meaningful ideas to prevent war.

“This article is trying to identify the sources of instability and potential stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Weiss said, “recognizing that on all three sides there is a bit of misapprehension of what constitutes true deterrence – underweighting the importance of credible assurance. As the article points out, assurance is not a carrot or reward, but a guarantee that the threat of punishment or costs is fully conditional on how the target in question behaves.”

When Xi gave his speech, Weiss was an observer, but when China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi came to Washington, D.C., to pave the way for Biden and Xi to meet, Weiss did more than listen. At a meeting organized by the Aspen Strategy Group, Weiss had the opportunity to ask a question – and offer some comments.

“I said that the discrepancy between what Chinese officials say in their external facing rhetoric and what they write in their internal strategy documents and speeches has led some more hawkish voices to conclude that China has these very malign intentions,” Weiss said. “I suggested that discrepancy might be something they might attend to if the Chinese government is serious about stabilizing relations with the United States and peaceful coexistence.”

Weiss has had plenty of experience making suggestions to policymakers. She spent Aug. 2021 to July 2022 as senior adviser to the secretary of state’s policy planning staff at the U.S. State Department on a Council on Foreign Relations’ International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars. During that year she explored what would be politically acceptable and consistent with U.S. policy that would make a difference in China-U.S. and cross-strait relations.

In February, she published an op-ed in The Washington Post titled “The U.S. should deter – not provoke – Beijing over Taiwan. Here’s how.”

But while Weiss recognized the need for specific assurances in U.S.-China relations that could be conveyed through diplomacy, she found few inside the U.S. government thinking deeply about what that could look like.

“The gap between what scholars think and what many officials and commentators think became really apparent to me when I was in D.C.,” she said.

In the Foreign Affairs article, she and co-authors Bonnie S. Glaser and Thomas J. Christensen tried to bridge that gap.

The article draws on research in international affairs scholarship that’s been overlooked with the over-emphasis on military preparedness, Weiss said: “Deterrence should not be equated only with military might.”

And while Weiss and her co-authors point out a number of “unwise” statements that have been made by American officials, the article also offers important – and specific -– recommendations for leaders in Taipei and Beijing.

“It’s important to note that these are unilateral steps we suggest that, alone or individually, could be useful to prolong or extend this period of relative peace and stability,” Weiss said. “And if our recommendations were done in concert with one another, over time they could help build trust and reduce tension.”

Linda B. Glaser is news and media relations manager for the College of Arts and Sciences.

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President Biden to sit down in California with China's leader Xi Jinping

Xi is in the U.S. for a Pacific Rim nations meeting. The Xi-Biden talks come at a time of poor relations between the countries. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Patricia Kim of the Brookings Institution.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Somewhere in California today, President Biden meets China's leader, Xi Jinping. We're not being told the exact location yet for security reasons. Xi is in the United States for a big meeting of Pacific Rim leaders, but this separate meeting between the leaders of the two dominant powers in the Pacific and around the world may mean more. Relations are so bad that President Biden says he wants to talk about talking. He wants to make sure that he can get China's leader on the phone in a crisis and wants to make sure the two militaries can talk with one another. Patricia Kim is our next guest. She focuses on U.S.-China relations at the Brookings Institution. Good morning.

PATRICIA KIM: Good morning, Steve.

INSKEEP: How big a deal is it that these two militaries have not been talking?

KIM: Well, Steve, I think it is a big deal, given Chinese and U.S. forces, as well as the forces of U.S. partners, are operating every day in close proximity to each other in hotspots like the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

INSKEEP: So the idea here is that the - an American general would want to be able to call his or her Chinese counterpart and say, listen, let's not start a nuclear war over this. I mean, that's really the issue here, isn't it?

KIM: Absolutely. And that just hasn't been possible in recent months, especially since Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, when China cut all the dialogues between the two militaries. There were dialogues between working-level defense officials, a dialogue around maritime safety issues, between theater commanders, and all of these were cut. And so the United States has been keen to restore these channels of communications, which it believes are essential for avoiding miscalculations and reducing the risks of conflict.

INSKEEP: Is it right that even the presidents haven't been talking?

KIM: Well the presidents - right, they have not met in a year. So this would be the first time they've met since they saw each other in Bali last November. But the two sides have been ramping up diplomatic communications, and we've seen a number of high-level officials from the U.S. side going over to China and Chinese officials coming back to the U.S.

INSKEEP: I want to think about the U.S. approach to China and how it might be received in China. President Biden has said that he wants to cooperate where possible, while also recognizing that there's a rivalry. And, of course, the United States has taken a lot of steps in the last couple of years, ramping up competition over computer chips, just to name something, blocking a lot of technology transfer of various kinds to China. Are the Chinese feeling these moves?

KIM: I think they are. I think they are. They are worried about the export restrictions that the U.S. has imposed. They are worried about the downward trajectory of the U.S.-China relationship. And so I do think that Xi's visit to the United States now is about trying to stabilize the U.S.-China relationship. I think they realize now is not the time to rock the boat with the U.S., especially as they face economic headwinds at home. And there's also been a lot of turbulence in the Chinese political system, with a number of high-level officials being dismissed. And so there's a desire to maybe not fundamentally reset but to tactically stabilize the U.S.-China relationship.

INSKEEP: You know, I'm glad you mentioned those two terms you just - you talked about economic headwinds. You talked about political turbulence. Evan Osnos of The New Yorker had a long account of multiple visits to China in recent months and talking with people at all levels of society and comes out with a sense that a lot of Chinese think that they're in decline, that this country that seemed to be on the rise just a few years ago has now been clamped down upon by Xi's leadership and seems to be economically struggling a little bit. Do you think that a Chinese leader would go into a meeting like this with the president of the United States feeling that his country is in some kind of trouble?

KIM: Well, I don't know if he would state that in public, but I think it is the fact that the Chinese economy is not performing as well as it did in the past. There is low business and consumer confidence. There's record-low youth unemployment. And I think during the COVID times, there was a lot of trust that was lost by the Chinese people in their government with these very draconian zero-COVID policies - whether they're rich or poor or somewhere in the middle, that there was nothing they could do when there were these extreme lockdowns. And so what I hear from my Chinese counterparts is that a lot of trust has been lost, and there's still a lot of shock around the pandemic years. And so I think that's the sort of the environment that exists in China.

INSKEEP: Is this a zero-sum game, meaning is that trouble in China good for the United States in some way?

KIM: You know, I don't think necessarily it is good. I think that the U.S. does have an interest in a stable China. It doesn't have an interest in a China where there's chaos at home or that it's feeling nervous and might seek for more adventures abroad. I don't think there is interest in that. I do think there's a genuine interest on both sides in stabilizing this relationship and opening up channels of communication.

INSKEEP: Patricia Kim of the Brookings Institution. Thanks for your insights.

KIM: Sure. Thanks to be here.

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Weekend Rundown: Here's the biggest news you missed this weekend

China warns U.S. of 'downward spiral' as Antony Blinken meets with Xi Jinping

HONG KONG — Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on Friday as he wrapped up a three-day visit to China dominated by contentious issues and warnings from his hosts of another “downward spiral” in relations.

The two men met Friday afternoon local time at the Great Hall of the People, an ornate and cavernous building next to Tiananmen Square.

Xi noted that this year is the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, and said the two countries “should be partners rather than adversaries.”

“The world is big enough to accommodate the simultaneous development and prosperity of both China and the United States,” he said, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry readout, adding that U.S.-China relations will stabilize once the U.S. takes “a positive and constructive view of China’s development.”

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Blinken said the U.S. did not aim to hold back China’s development or decouple the world’s two largest economies.

“We want China’s economy to grow,” he said, but “the way China grows matters.”

“That means fostering a healthy economic relationship where American workers and firms are treated equally and fairly,” said Blinken, who cited what he called China’s unfair trade practices and the risk that Chinese industrial overcapacity in key industries such as solar panels and electric vehicles could result in U.S. and other markets being flooded with Chinese products.

The visit is Blinken’s second in less than a year as the two superpowers work to stabilize ties with renewed talks despite a growing list of geopolitical differences.

A primary goal of Blinken’s visit to China was to warn about its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, which began weeks after Moscow and Beijing declared a “no limits” partnership in 2022. Though China does not appear to be supplying Russia with lethal assistance, Blinken said Friday that it was providing machine tools, microelectronics and other dual-use items that make it the “top supplier” of Russia’s defense industrial base.

“Russia would struggle to sustain its assault on Ukraine without China’s support,” he said.

Other issues on the agenda included Chinese economic and trade practices the U.S. views as unfair, Chinese aggression in the South China Sea , stability in the Taiwan Strait, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and the Israel-Hamas war.

Earlier Friday, Blinken met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where foreign dignitaries are often received.

“There’s no substitute, in our judgment, for face-to-face diplomacy in order to try and move forward, but also to make sure that we’re as clear as possible about the areas where we have differences, at the very least, to avoid misunderstandings, to avoid miscalculations,” Blinken told Wang before the meeting. 

Speaking through an interpreter before the meeting, Wang said the U.S.-China relationship “has gone through ups and downs and twists and turns.” 

He said the relationship was beginning to stabilize but that “negative factors” were increasing.

“China’s legitimate development rights have been unreasonably suppressed and our core interests are facing challenges,” Wang said, in an apparent reference to U.S. export controls and other measures that Beijing says are intended to limit its economic growth.

“Should China and the United States keep to the right direction of moving forward with stability or return to a downward spiral?” he said. “This is a major question before our two countries.”

Blinken later described his meeting with Wang, which lasted more than three hours, as “extensive and constructive.” 

According to a State Department readout, the two men discussed next steps on a range of commitments that Xi and President Joe Biden made at their summit in California in November, including advancing cooperation on counternarcotics, military-to-military communication, talks on artificial intelligence risks and safety, and facilitating people-to-people exchanges.

Blinken announced Friday that the U.S. and China would hold their first talks on artificial intelligence in the coming weeks.

The Biden-Xi summit, the first encounter between the two leaders in a year, was intended to stabilize U.S.-China relations that had reached their lowest point in decades amid disputes over trade, technology, the status of Taiwan and the downing of a suspected Chinese spy balloon over U.S. territory.

Though ties have improved since then, they are being tested by the strengthening of U.S. security alliances in the Asia-Pacific, U.S. concerns about Chinese goods flooding global markets, U.S. inquiries into China’s electric vehicle , shipbuilding and other industries, the possibility of increased U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods , and the passage this week of legislation that could result in a U.S. ban on the Chinese app TikTok .

The legislation, which Biden signed into law on Wednesday as Blinken was arriving in China, also includes $8 billion for security in Taiwan, a self-ruling island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory, and the broader Indo-Pacific, where the U.S. and China are competing for influence.

Blinken last visited China in June, when he also met with Xi. This trip also included a stop in Shanghai, where Blinken met with U.S. business leaders and visited the Shanghai campus of New York University .

Jennifer Jett is the Asia Digital Editor for NBC News, based in Hong Kong.

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Antony Blinken arrives in China with warning for Beijing over support of Russia

US secretary of state to hold talks with Chinese counterpart and most likely with President Xi Jinping

Antony Blinken has landed in China amid a worsening rift between the world’s two most powerful countries that threatens to overshadow otherwise improving relations.

The US secretary of state arrives with a warning that the US and its European allies are no longer prepared to tolerate China’s sale of weapon components and dual-use products to Russia, which are helping Vladimir Putin rebuild and modernise his arms factories, enabling him to intensify his onslaught on Ukraine.

Relations between China and the US had been warmer recently, with Beijing significantly less bellicose in its military posturing in the Taiwan strait since the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden in Woodside , California, in 2023. In the wake of that summit, progress was made on people-to-people ties, more than doubling the number of flights between the two countries, for example.

At Woodside, Xi also agreed to take action to curb the flow of precursors and equipment used in the making of fentanyl in Latin America, which is causing rising deaths among young Americans.

On his three-day visit, Blinken will first stop in Shanghai on his way to Beijing, to speak to students and attend a basketball game, the sort of popular diplomacy that would have been unthinkable a year ago, when bilateral relations were fraught, mostly over Taiwan .

However, when Blinken reaches Beijing for a meeting with his counterpart Wang Yi on Friday, expected to last six hours, and most likely with Xi too, the mood could cool, with discussions about China’s sale of dual-use products to Russia on the agenda.

US sanctions against the Chinese companies involved are also looming over this week’s visit.

“We’re committed to taking the steps necessary to defend our national interests,” a senior administration official said, adding that the planned measures would be aimed at “firms that are taking steps in contravention to our interests and in ways that severely undermine security in both Ukraine and Europe.”

“This will be a key issue of discussion while we’re in Beijing,” the official said. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Biden administration was also considering sanctions against Chinese banks, but US officials say that there are no imminent plans to take such measures.

The US believes its hand is strengthened on this issue having discussed a common position with European allies, who are alarmed by the prospect of a rebuilt, modernised and battle-hardened Russian military in the hands of an increasingly aggressive leader in the Kremlin. The G7 foreign ministers issued a strongly worded statement earlier this week, saying: “China should ensure that this support stops.”

“My expectation is that friends in Europe will have opportunities to express their concerns both in public and private to Chinese officials as well,” the senior administration official said. “So our objective will be to clearly make the case what the implications are of this support, and why that may not be in China’s interest going forward.”

US officials believe such joint pressure has helped convince Beijing to back down from their plans to supply arms directly to Russia earlier in the Ukraine war. However, they acknowledge that it will be hard to convince Xi to stop selling dual use industrial goods to China’s most important strategic partner.

Before Blinken’s arrival, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, restated China’s position.

“Let me stress again that China’s right to conduct normal trade and economic exchanges with Russia and other countries in the world on the basis of equality and mutual benefit should not be interfered with or disrupted,” Wang said, according to Beijing Youth Daily. “China’s legitimate and lawful rights and interests should not be infringed on.”

The Blinken team is aware that China’s response to pressure over Russia could be to slow down progress in other areas of the bilateral relationship.

Beijing has taken steps to curb the trade in fentanyl precursors and equipment in the wake of the Woodside summit, issuing a warning to pharmaceutical firms that it would enforce the law on those chemicals and taking police action against some suppliers. Blinken will be pressing for more, in the form of disruption of the financing networks around the trade, and more consistent law enforcement action.

It is unclear whether Beijing will limit cooperation on such a vital issue for Washington – fentanyl is the primary cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 49 – in response to threatened measures over Russia.

Beijing’s adamant support for Moscow is deepened by its belief that the US is seeking to encircle China by constructing an interlocking network of alliances around it.

Earlier this month, the US, Japan, and the Philippines, held a trilateral summit at the White House, reaffirming the security alliance between the three countries in the face of “dangerous and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea”, less than a year after a similar summit at Camp David with Japan and South Korea. In recent years, the US also formed the Aukus security pact with Australia and the UK.

On most such bilateral issues, US officials say, the Chinese are highly disciplined in discussions, to the point where officials turn the page on their notes at the same time as Wang. There is rarely any diplomatic give and take in the meeting, but rather a recital of positions. Explorations of mutual benefit are left to working groups. Wang is more likely to go off-script on multilateral issues such as the Middle East, where both countries share an interest in the free flow of shipping.

Blinken and Wang have spoken six times since the outbreak of the Gaza war on 7 October about the situation in the region, where both US and China urged restraint on their respective partners, Israel and Iran, when an all-out war threatened to ignite this month .

Washington would like Beijing to do the same with North Korea. In US eyes, China has walked away from efforts to try to influence Pyongyang, at a time when the regime there has ramped up its threatening rhetoric against South Korea and other neighbours and warned of accelerated missile launches since it began deepening its relationship with Russia.

While US officials expect that some of Blinken’s sessions with Chinese counterparts may be “scratchy” because of the multiple irritations in the relationship, they also believe that China is committed to maintaining stability in the coming years while the leadership addresses economic challenges.

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UCLA skirmish highlights weekend of protests on US campuses

Protests at U.S. universities showed no sign of slowing over the weekend, with more arrests on campuses and a brief skirmish between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at California's UCLA, where a tent encampment was set up last week.

North Korea criticized the United States for supplying long-range missiles to Ukraine, state media KCNA reported on Monday, citing a statement from the defence ministry.

A New Pacific Arsenal to Counter China

With missiles, submarines and alliances, the Biden administration has built a presence in the region to rein in Beijing’s expansionist goals.

By John Ismay ,  Edward Wong and Pablo Robles April 26, 2024

U.S. officials have long seen their country as a Pacific power, with troops and arsenals at a handful of bases in the region since just after World War II.

U.S. military or partner bases

But the Biden administration says that is no longer good enough to foil what it sees as the greatest threat to the democratic island of Taiwan — a Chinese invasion that could succeed within days.

The United States is sending the most advanced Tomahawk cruise missiles to Japan and has established a new kind of Marine Corps regiment on Okinawa that is designed to fight from small islands and destroy ships at sea.

The Pentagon has gained access to multiple airfields and naval bases in the Philippines , lessening the need for aircraft carriers that could be targeted by China’s long-range missiles and submarines in a time of war.

The Australian government hosts U.S. Marines in the north of the country, and one of three sites in the east will soon be the new home for advanced American-made attack submarines. The United States also has a new security agreement with Papua New Guinea.

Potential submarine bases

Xi Jinping, China’s leader, and other officials in Beijing have watched the U.S. moves with alarm. They call it an encirclement of their nation and say the United States is trying to constrain its main economic and military rival.

Since the start of his administration, President Biden has undertaken a strategy to expand American military access to bases in allied nations across the Asia-Pacific region and to deploy a range of new weapons systems there. He has also said the U.S. military would defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion.

On Wednesday, Mr. Biden signed a $95 billion supplemental military aid and spending bill that Congress had just passed and that includes $8.1 billion to counter China in the region. And Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken traveled to Shanghai and Beijing this week for meetings with Mr. Xi and other officials in which he raised China’s military activity in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, calling it “destabilizing.”

Mr. Xi told Mr. Blinken on Friday that the United States should not play a “zero-sum game” or “create small blocs.” He said that “while each side can have its friends and partners, it should not target, oppose or harm the other,” according to an official Chinese summary of the meeting.

Earlier in April, the leaders of the Philippines and Japan met with Mr. Biden at the White House for the first such summit among the three countries. They announced enhanced defense cooperation, including naval training and exercises, planned jointly and with other partners. Last year, the Biden administration forged a new three-way defense pact with Japan and South Korea.

President Biden held a trilateral meeting earlier this month with the leaders of Japan and the Philippines at the White House.

Yuri Gripas for The New York Times

“In 2023, we drove the most transformative year for U.S. force posture in the Indo-Pacific region in a generation,” Ely S. Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs, said in a statement following an interview.

The main change, he said, is having American forces distributed in smaller, more mobile units across a wide arc of the region rather than being concentrated at large bases in northeast Asia. That is largely intended to counter China’s efforts to build up forces that can target aircraft carriers or U.S. military outposts on Okinawa or Guam.

These land forces, including a retrained and refitted U.S. Marine littoral regiment in Okinawa, will now have the ability to attack warships at sea.

For the first time, Japan’s military will receive up to 400 of their own Tomahawk cruise missiles — the newest versions of which can attack ships at sea as well as targets on land from over 1,150 miles away.

The Pentagon has also gained access rights for its troops at four additional bases in the Philippines that could eventually host U.S. warplanes and advanced mobile missile launchers, if Washington and Manila agree that offensive weaponry can be placed there.

The United States has bilateral mutual defense agreements with several allied nations in the region so that an attack on the assets of one nation could trigger a response from the other. Bolstering the U.S. troop presence on the soil of allied countries strengthens that notion of mutual defense.

In addition, the United States continues to send weapons and Green Beret trainers to Taiwan, a de facto independent island and the biggest flashpoint between the United States and China. Mr. Xi has said his nation must eventually take control of Taiwan, by force if necessary.

“We’ve deepened our alliances and partnerships abroad in ways that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago,” Kurt Campbell, the new deputy secretary of state, told reporters last year, when he was the top Asia policy official in the White House.

What Deters China?

Taiwan’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, said in an interview in Taipei that the strengthened alliances and evolving military force postures were critical to deterring China.

“We are very happy to see that many countries in this region are coming to the realization that they also have to be prepared for further expansions of the P.R.C.,” he said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

To some Chinese military strategists, the U.S. efforts are aimed at keeping China’s naval forces behind the “first island chain” — islands close to mainland Asia that run from Okinawa in Japan to Taiwan to the Philippines.

U.S. military assets along these islands could prevent Chinese warships from getting into the open Pacific waters farther east if conflict were to break out.

Leaders in China’s People’s Liberation Army also talk of establishing military dominance of the “second island chain” — which is farther out in the Pacific and includes Guam, Palau and West Papua.

First Island Chain

Second Island Chain

philippines

But several conservative critics of the administration’s policies argue that the United States should be keeping major arms for its own use and that it is not producing new ships and weapons systems quickly enough to deter China, which is rapidly growing its military .

Some American commanders acknowledge the United States needs to speed up ship production but say the Pentagon’s warfighting abilities in the region still outmatch China’s — and can improve quickly with the right political and budget commitments in Washington.

“We have actually grown our combat capability here in the Pacific over the last years,” Adm. Samuel J. Paparo Jr., the incoming commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said in an interview. “But our trajectory is still not a trajectory that matches our adversary. Our adversaries are building more capability and they’re building more warships — per year — than we are.”

Mr. Paparo said new American warships were still more capable than the ones China is building, and the U.S. military’s “total weight of fires” continued to outmatch that of the People’s Liberation Army, for now.

Warplanes on the flight deck of U.S.S. Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, during a joint U.S. and Japanese military exercise in the Philippine Sea in January.

Richard A. Brooks/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty , a Cold War-era arms control agreement between Washington and Moscow, prohibited land-based cruise or ballistic missiles with ranges between 311 miles and 3,420 miles. But after the Trump administration withdrew from the pact, the United States was able to develop and field a large number of small, mobile launchers for previously banned missiles around Asia.

Even with the deployment of new systems, the United States would still rely on its legacy assets in the region in the event of war: its bases in Guam, Japan and South Korea, and the troops and arms there.

All of the senior U.S. officials interviewed for this story say war with China is neither desirable nor inevitable — a view expressed publicly by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III. But they also insist that a military buildup and bolstering alliances, along with diplomatic talks with China, are important elements of deterring potential future aggression by Beijing.

Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, told Mr. Blinken on Friday in Beijing that “the negative factors in the relationship are still increasing and building, and the relationship is facing all kinds of disruptions.” He warned the United States “not to interfere in China’s internal affairs, not to hold China’s development back, and not to step on China’s red lines and on China’s sovereignty, security and development interests.”

U.S. military or

partner bases

The new deterrent effort is twofold for American forces: increasing patrolling activities at sea and the capabilities of its troop levels ashore.

To the former, the Pentagon has announced that U.S. Navy warships will participate in more drills with their Japanese counterparts in the western Ryukyu Islands near Taiwan and with Filipino ships in the South China Sea, where the Chinese coast guard has harassed ships and installations controlled by the Philippines .

A swarm of Chinese militia and Coast Guard vessels chased a Philippine Coast Guard ship in the South China Sea last year.

Jes Aznar for The New York Times

To the latter, Marine Corps and Army units already in the Pacific have recently fielded medium- and long-range missiles mated to small, mobile trucks that would have been prohibited under the former treaty.

These trucks can be quickly lifted by Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft or larger cargo planes to new locations, or they can simply drive away to evade a Chinese counterattack. A new flotilla of U.S. Army watercraft being sent to the region could also be used to reposition troops and launchers from island to island.

In an interview last year with The New York Times, Gen. David H. Berger, then the Marine Corps’ top general, said the service had begun analyzing strategic choke points between islands where Chinese forces were likely to transit throughout the Pacific. He said the service had identified sites where Marine assault forces like the new Okinawa-based littoral regiment could launch attacks on Beijing’s warships using these new weapons.

Philippines

Partner bases

The Pentagon announced in February last year a new military base-sharing agreement with Manila, giving U.S. forces access to four sites in the Philippines for use in humanitarian missions, adding to the five sites previously opened to the Pentagon in 2014. Most of them are air bases with runways long enough to host heavy cargo planes.

Plotting their locations on a map shows the sites’ strategic value should the United States be called upon to defend their oldest treaty ally in the region , if the Philippines eventually agrees to allow the U.S. military to put combat troops and mobile missile systems there.

One, on the northern tip of Luzon Island, would give missile-launching trucks the ability to attack Chinese ships across the strait separating Philippines from Taiwan, while another site about 700 miles to the southwest would allow the U.S. to strike bases that China has built in the Spratly Islands nearby.

In 2023, the United States committed $100 million for “infrastructure investments” at the nine bases, with more funds expected this year.

The Pentagon has forged closer military ties with Australia and Papua New Guinea , extending America’s bulwark against potential attempts by the Chinese military at establishing dominance along the “second island chain.”

The Obama administration moved a number of littoral combat ships to Singapore and deployed a rotating force of Marines to Darwin, on Australia’s north coast, giving the Pentagon more assets that could respond as needed in the region.

Last year, the Biden administration greatly elevated its commitment to Australia, which is one of America’s most important non-NATO allies.

The U.S.S. North Carolina, a Virginia-class submarine, docking in Perth, Australia last year.

Tony Mcdonough/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A new multibillion dollar agreement called AUKUS — for Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States — will permanently transfer some of the U.S. Navy’s newest Virginia-class attack subs to Canberra . The location of the new bases for those subs has not been announced, but the first group of Australian sailors who will crew them graduated from nuclear power training in America in January.

These stealthy submarines, which can fire torpedoes and Tomahawk missiles, will potentially add to the number of threats Beijing faces in case of a regional war.

Just north of Australia, an agreement in August gave U.S. forces more access to Papua New Guinea for humanitarian missions and committed American tax dollars to update military facilities there.

To Admiral Paparo, this growing network of partnerships and security agreements across thousands of miles of the Pacific is a direct result of what he calls China’s “revanchist, revisionist and expansionist agenda” in the region that has directly threatened its neighbors.

“I do believe that the U.S. and our allies and partners are playing a stronger hand and that we would prevail in any fight that arose in the Western Pacific,” the admiral said.

“It’s a hand that I would not trade with our would-be adversaries, and yet we’re also never satisfied with the strength of that hand and always looking to improve it.”

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