Xi Jinping
China’s Communist Party conference starts: Xi expected to receive a third term
China on Sunday opened a twice-a-decade Communist Party conference at which leader Xi Jinping is expected to receive a third five-year term that breaks with recent precedent and establishes him as arguably the most powerful Chinese politician since Mao Zedong.
Xi is expected to issue a lengthy address at the opening session, but little change is foreseen in China’s strict one-party rule, intolerance of criticism and hard-line approach toward COVID-19 including quarantines and travel bans.
As with most Chinese political events, little information has been released beforehand and the congress’ outcome will only be announced after days of closed-door sessions.
How much has been decided in advance and how much is still to be hashed out in face-to-face meetings remains unknown.
More than 2,000 of the party’s 96 million members are attending the weeklong meeting at the hulking Great Hall of the People in the center of Beijing.
China says Ukraine crisis has sounded alarm for humanity
The conflict in Ukraine has “sounded an alarm for humanity,” Chinese leader Xi Jinping said Wednesday, as China continues to assume a position of neutrality while backing its ally Russia.
China has refused to criticize Russia’s war in Ukraine or even to refer to it as an invasion in deference to Moscow, while also condemning U.S.-led sanctions against Russia and accusing the West of provoking Moscow.
“The Ukraine crisis has again sounded the alarm for humanity. Countries will surely end up in security hardships if they place blind faith in their positions of strength, expand military alliances, and seek their own safety at the expense of others,” the official Xinhua News Agency quoted Xi as saying.
Xi, who did not propose any solutions, was speaking at the opening of a virtual business forum of the “BRICS” countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
In other comments, Xi said imposing sanctions could act as a “boomerang” and a “double-edged sword,” and that the global community would suffer from “politicizing, mechanizing and weaponizing” global economic trends and financial flows.
Also Read: Ukraine and rising global insecurity, test for all: UN rights chief
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro maintained an unusual diplomatic tone in his brief recorded speech to the forum, exalting his administration’s results without naming any other country.
“The current international context is a cause for concern because of the risks to trade and investment flows to the stability of energy supply chains and investment,” he said. “Brazil’s response to these challenges is not to close itself off. On the contrary, we have sought to deepen our economic integration.”
Xi also said China would seek to reduce the damage to international supply chains caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which it has confronted with a hard-line policy of lockdowns and quarantines, despite a diminishing number of cases and the increasing economic cost.
China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy and drive to dominate global markets have prompted a backlash in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, including calls to replace Chinese suppliers and reduce reliance on the Chinese economy.
Xi called for nations to work together on such issues, saying efforts to “build a small courtyard with high walls” was in no one’s interest.
“Economic globalization is an objective requirement for the development of productive forces and an irresistible historical trend,” Xi said.
“Going backwards in history and trying to block other people’s road will only block your own road in the end,” he said.
China looks to learn from Russian failures in Ukraine
With its ground troops forced to pull back in Ukraine and regroup, and its Black Sea flagship sunk, Russia’s military failings are mounting. No country is paying closer attention than China to how a smaller and outgunned force has badly bloodied what was thought to be one of the world’s most powerful armies.
China, like Russia, has been ambitiously reforming its Soviet-style military and experts say leader Xi Jinping will be carefully parsing the weaknesses exposed by the invasion of Ukraine as they might apply to his own People’s Liberation Army and his designs on the self-governed island of Taiwan.
“The big question Xi and the PLA leadership must be asking in light of Russian operations in Ukraine is whether a military that has undergone extensive reform and modernization will be able to execute operations that are far more complex than those Russia has undertaken during its invasion of Ukraine,” said M. Taylor Fravel, director of the security studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Russia’s armed forces have undergone an extensive process of reform and investment for more than a decade, with lessons learned in combat in Georgia, Chechnya, Syria and its annexation of Crimea helping guide the process. The Ukrainian invasion, however, has exposed weaknesses from the top down.
Experts have been collectively stunned that Russia invaded Ukraine with seemingly little preparation and lack of focus — a campaign along multiple, poorly-coordinated axes that has failed to effectively combine air and land operations.
Soldiers have been running out of food, and vehicles have been breaking down. With losses mounting, Moscow has pulled its bloodied forces away from the capital, Kyiv, to regroup. Last week, the guided-missile cruiser Moskva sank after Ukraine said it hit the ship with missiles; Russia blamed the sinking on a fire on board.
“It’s very hard to see success at any level in the way that Russia has prosecuted the campaign,” said Euan Graham, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in Singapore.
Also Read: China-renews calls for peace talks to end Russia-Ukraine war
President Vladimir Putin, who has been closely involved in Russia’s military reform, did not even appoint an overall commander for the operation until about a week ago, apparently expecting a quick victory and grossly misjudging Ukrainian resistance, Graham said.
“It’s a very personal war on his part,” Graham said. “And I think the expectation that this would be a cakewalk is obviously the biggest single failure.”
Putin’s decisions raise the question of whether he was given accurate assessments of the progress of military reform and Ukrainian abilities, or was just told what he wanted to hear.
Xi, also an authoritarian leader who has taken a personal role in China’s military reform, could now be wondering the same, Fravel said.
“Xi specifically may also wonder whether he is receiving accurate reports about the PLA’s likely effectiveness in a high intensity conflict,” he said.
China has had no recent major conflict by which to gauge its military prowess, having fought its last significant engagement in 1979 against Vietnam, said David Chen, a senior consultant with CENTRA Technology, a U.S.-based government services firm.
“The wakeup call for (China’s) Central Military Commission is that there are more unknown factors involved in any such campaign than they may have anticipated,” Chen said.
“Russia’s experience in Ukraine has shown that what may seem plausible on paper at the Academy of Military Science or National Defense University becomes much more complicated in the real world.”
Xi, the son of a revolutionary commander who spent time in uniform himself, began undertaking military reforms in 2015, three years after assuming leadership of the Central Military Commission.
Total troop strength was reduced by 300,000 to just under 2 million, the number of officers cut by a third and a greater emphasis given to non-commissioned officers to lead in the field.
China’s military has a tradition of respect for initiative from lower-ranking soldiers dating from its revolutionary origins, said Yue Gang, a Beijing-based military analyst. By contrast, Russian forces in Ukraine have shown weaknesses where decisions have had to be made on the front lines, he said.
“Chinese soldiers are encouraged to put forward their thoughts and views when discussing how to fight,” Yue said.
China’s seven military districts have been reorganized into five theater commands, the number of group armies reduced and the logistics system reorganized to boost efficiency. The ratio of support to combat units was increased and a greater emphasis placed on more mobile and amphibious units.
Xi has also sought to end rampant corruption in the military, going after two former top generals shortly after taking power. One was sentenced to life in prison and the other died before his case was concluded.
China’s military is highly opaque and outside the purview of civilian judges and corruption investigators, so it’s difficult to know how thoroughly the organization has been exorcised of practices such as the selling of commissions and kickbacks on defense contracts.
For Xi, the military’s primary mission remains to protect the ruling Communist Party, and he has followed his predecessors in fighting back hard against efforts to have the military shift its ultimate loyalty to the nation.
Xi’s overriding political focus could mean the lessons he draws from the Ukraine conflict are off base, Graham said.
“Xi Jinping will always apply a political solution because he’s not a military specialist or an economic specialist,” Graham said. “I think the military lessons have to go through a political filter, so I’m not sure that China will take the lessons that are abundant and on show for everyone to see.”
The stated goal of China’s military reform is to “fight and win wars” against a “strong enemy” — a euphemism widely understood to refer to the United States.
China has pumped huge amounts of money into new equipment, has initiated more realistic training exercises with force-on-force scenarios, and sought to reform its fighting doctrine by studying American engagements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo.
Gen. David Berger, the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, said in a forum in Australia last week that Beijing would be watching the Ukraine conflict closely.
Also Read: Russia hits Ukrainian cities pours more troops into war
“I don’t know what lessons they will learn but ... they’re focused on learning, without a doubt, because they’ve been doing that for the last 15 years,” he said.
Berger stressed the need for strong coalitions in the Pacific as a way to keep China’s ambitions toward Taiwan in check.
China claims Taiwan as its own, and controlling the island is a key component of Beijing’s political and military thinking. In October, Xi again reiterated that “reunification of the nation must be realized, and will definitely be realized.”
Washington’s longstanding policy has been to provide political and military support for Taiwan, while not explicitly promising to defend it from a Chinese attack.
Like Putin’s assessment of Ukraine, Xi’s China does not appear to believe that Taiwan would try to put up much of a fight. Beijing routinely blames its problems with the island on a small group of hardcore independence advocates and their American supporters.The entirely state-controlled Chinese media, meanwhile, draws on the imagined narrative that Taiwan would not willingly go to battle against what it describes as their fellow Chinese.
Now, the quick response by many nations to impose tough, coordinated sanctions on Russia after its attack on Ukraine, and the willingness to supply Ukraine with high-tech weaponry could make Xi rethink his approach to Taiwan, Fravel said.
With “the rapid response by advanced industrialized states, and the unity they have demonstrated, Xi is likely to be more cautious over Taiwan and less emboldened,” he said.
Conversely, the Ukraine experience could prompt China to accelerate its timetable on Taiwan with a more limited attack, such as seizing an outlying island, as a real-world test of its own military, Chen said.
“A sensible course would be to mature the PLA’s joint institutions and procedures through ever more rigorous exercises,” Chen said.
“But as the world has witnessed, a central leader with a specific ambition and a shortening timeline may short-circuit the process in reckless fashion.”
World leaders: Who’s coming, who isn’t to Beijing Olympics
The U.S., Britain and a handful of others aren’t sending dignitaries to the Beijing Winter Games as part of a diplomatic boycott, but the Chinese capital is still attracting an array of world leaders for Friday’s opening ceremony.
A look at who is attending, who is staying away and why:
ATTENDING
— RUSSIA: President Vladimir Putin is meeting Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping ahead of the opening ceremony, underscoring closer ties between Beijing and Moscow as they both face Western criticism and pressure.
— EGYPT AND SERBIA: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic have growing frictions with the West over their authoritarian policies and human rights records. Both leaders have gravitated toward China. Vucic called Xi his “brother” for supplying Serbia with respirators and vaccines.
— SAUDI ARABIA, QATAR, UAE: Beijing’s Gulf relations are above all about energy. China is Saudi Arabia’s largest buyer of oil and a major customer for Qatar’s natural gas. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto leader, is appearing at the Winter Games as investors and some governments signal warming relations after the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
— CENTRAL ASIA: The leaders of all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia are heading to Beijing, highlighting the region’s increasingly close ties with China. Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Zhaparov pushed last month for the revival of a long-delayed project to build a railroad from China through his country to Uzbekistan. China is Turkmenistan’s only reliable major buyer of natural gas.
Also read: Clap, don't chant: China aims for 'Zero COVID' Olympics
— ARGENTINA AND ECUADOR: Argentina is set to become the first major Latin American country to join China’s Belt and Road Initiative. President Alberto Fernández is also expected to discuss China’s help building Argentina’s first nuclear power plant since 1981. President Guillermo Lasso is seeking to renegotiate Ecuador’s $4.6 billion debt with China.
— UNITED NATIONS: Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus will attend. The IOC is a close partner of the U.N., Guterres said, and the Olympics bring together people with a message of solidarity and peace. “This is ... a message that, in my opinion, is more relevant than the political circumstances that exists in the countries where the Olympics take place,” he told The Associated Press.
NOT ATTENDING
— BOYCOTTS: The United States announced a diplomatic boycott while allowing its athletes to compete. Major U.S. allies followed including Britain, Australia and Canada, whose Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said: “We are extremely concerned by the repeated human rights violations by the Chinese government.” Kosovo and Lithuania, whose relations with China have nosedived over their ties with Taiwan, are also taking part in the boycott. India said it won’t send any officials following reports that a Chinese military commander who was involved in deadly clashes with Indian border forces in 2020 had been chosen as one of the Olympic torchbearers in Beijing.
Also read: China says US diplomatic boycott violates Olympic spirit
— NON-BOYCOTTERS: The Norwegian and Swedish royals, who normally attend the Winter Olympics, aren’t going. Neither are any leaders from Germany, Austria or Switzerland, all big winter sports nations. Officially they’re citing the pandemic, rather than any diplomatic protest. Others such as Denmark, the Netherlands and New Zealand have cited COVID-19 restrictions while also expressing concern over China’s human rights situation.
President Xi Jinping, China’s ‘chairman of everything’
The last time the Olympics came to China, he oversaw the whole endeavor. Now the Games are back, and this time Xi Jinping is running the entire nation.
The Chinese president, hosting a Winter Olympics beleaguered by complaints about human rights abuses, has upended tradition to restore strongman rule in China and tighten Communist Party control over the economy and society.
Xi was in charge of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing that served as a “coming-out party” for China as an economic and political force. A second-generation member of the party elite, Xi became general secretary of the party in 2012. He took the ceremonial title of president the next year.
Xi spent his first five-year term atop the party making himself China’s strongest leader at least since Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. Xi was dubbed “chairman of everything” after he put himself in charge of economic, propaganda and other major functions. That reversed a consensus for the ruling inner circle to avoid power struggles by sharing decision-making.
Read:Xi stresses common development, win-win cooperation
The party is crushing pro-democracy and other activism and tightening control over business and society. It has expanded surveillance of China’s 1.4 billion people and control of business, culture, education and religion. A “social credit” system tracks every person and company and punishes infractions from pollution to littering.
Xi’s rise coincides with increased assertiveness abroad following three decades of China keeping its head down to focus on economic development.
Xi wants China to be “the greatest country on Earth, widely admired and therefore followed,” said Steve Tsang, a Chinese politics specialist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.
“The world where China is top dog is a world where authoritarianism is safe,” Tsang said. Democracies will ”need to know their place.”
Born in Beijing in 1953, Xi enjoyed a privileged youth as the second son of Xi Zhongxun, a former vice premier and guerrilla commander in the civil war that brought Mao Zedong’s communist rebels to power in 1949. At 15, Xi Jinping was sent to rural Shaanxi province in 1969 as part of Mao’s campaign to have educated urban young people learn from peasants. Xi was caught trying to sneak back to the Chinese capital and returned to Shaanxi to dig irrigation ditches.
“Knives are sharpened on the stone. People are refined through hardship,” Xi told a Chinese magazine in 2001. “Whenever I later encountered trouble, I’d just think of how hard it had been to get things done back then and nothing would then seem difficult.”
Beijing is pushing for a bigger role in managing trade and global affairs to match its status as the second-biggest economy. It has antagonized Japan, India and other neighbors by trying to intimidate Taiwan — the island democracy that the ruling party says belongs to China — and by pressing claims to disputed sections of the South and East China Seas and the Himalayas.
The party has ended limits on foreign ownership in its auto industry and made other market-opening changes. But it has declared state-owned companies that dominate oil, banking and other industries the “core of the economy.”
Beijing is pressuring private sector successes such as Alibaba Group, the world’s biggest e-commerce company, to divert billions of dollars into nationalistic initiatives including making China a “technology power” and reducing reliance on the United States, Japan and other suppliers by developing processor chips and other products.
That, combined with U.S. and European curbs on Chinese access to technology due to security fears, is fueling anxiety global industry might decouple or split into markets with incompatible auto, telecom and other products. That would raise costs and slow innovation.
Xi, 68, looks certain to break with tradition again by pursuing a third term as party leader at a congress in October or November. He had the constitution’s limit of two terms on his presidency repealed in 2018. That reversed arrangements put in place in the 1990s for party factions to share decision-making and hand over power to younger leaders once every decade.
Even before Xi took power, party officials complained that group leadership was too cumbersome and allowed lower-level leaders to ignore or obstruct initiatives. Officials defend Xi’s efforts to stay in power by saying he needs to ensure reforms are carried out.
Xi led an anti-corruption crackdown whose most prominent targets were members of other factions or supported rival leadership candidates. The campaign was popular with the public but led to complaints that officials refused to make big decisions for fear of attracting attention.
Xi has called for a “national rejuvenation” based on tighter party control over education, culture and religion. Many of the changes are hostile to ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, pro-democracy and other activists and independent-minded artists and writers. Social media groups for gay university students have been shut down. Men deemed insufficiently masculine were banned from TV.
Read: China orders lockdown of up to 13 million people in Xi’an
An estimated 1 million Uyghurs and members of other mostly Muslim minority groups have been confined in camps in the Xinjiang region in the northwest. Activists complain Beijing is trying to erase minority cultures, but officials say the camps are for job training and to combat radicalism. They reject reports of force abortions and other abuses.
Xi oversaw the 2015 detention of more than 200 lawyers and legal aides who helped activists and members of the public challenge official abuses.
After the coronavirus emerged in 2019, Xi’s government suppressed information and punished doctors who tried to warn the public. That prompted accusations Beijing allowed the disease to spread more widely and left other countries unprepared.
Beijing extended its crackdown to Hong Kong following 2019 protests that began over a proposed extradition law and expanded to include demands for greater democracy.
A national security law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, prompting complaints that Beijing was eroding the autonomy that had been promised when the former British colony returned to China in 1997 — and ruining its status as a trade and financial center.
Pro-democracy figures have been imprisoned. They include Jimmy Lai, the 73-year-old former publisher of the Apple Daily newspaper, which shut down under government pressure, and organizers of candlelight memorials of the party’s deadly 1989 crackdown on a pro-democracy movement.
A big potential stumbling block to achieving Xi’s ambitions is the struggling economy. Growth is slumping after Beijing tightened controls on use of debt in its real estate industry, one of its biggest economic engines. That adds to the drag from politically motivated initiatives, including tech development and orders to manufacturers to use Chinese suppliers of components and raw materials, even if that costs more.
“Xi himself weakens the economy rather than strengthening it,” Tsang said. “If you mess up the economy, he’s not going to make China the dominant power in the world.”
Xi stresses common development, win-win cooperation
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday that different countries and civilizations may prosper together on the basis of respect for each other, and seek common ground and win-win outcomes by setting aside differences.
Xi made the remarks while delivering a special address at the 2022 World Economic Forum virtual session.
The right way forward for humanity is peaceful development and win-win cooperation, said the Chinese President.
He called for following the trend of history, working for a stable international order, advocating common values of humanity, and building a community with a shared future for mankind.
"We should choose dialogue over confrontation, inclusiveness over exclusion, and stand against all forms of unilateralism, protectionism, hegemony or power politics," Xi said.
READ: Chinese President Xi Jinping's remarks at conference marking 50th anniversary of restoration of PRC's lawful seat in UN
Cooperation Amid Global Crisis
He called for solidarity and cooperation of the international community amid a global crisis, saying that "small boats may not survive a storm, but a giant ship is strong enough to brave a storm."
"Facts have shown once again that amidst the raging torrents of a global crisis, countries are not riding separately in some 190 small boats, but are rather all in a giant ship on which our shared destiny hinges," Xi said.
Sunshine of Hope
The Chinese President Xi Jinping called on the world to do everything necessary to clear the shadow of the pandemic and boost economic and social recovery and development, so that the sunshine of hope may light up the future of humanity.
READ: Will strengthen development strategies with Bangladesh: Chinese President
In two weeks' time, China will celebrate the advent of spring in the lunar new year, the Year of the Tiger, Xi said, noting that in Chinese culture, tiger symbolizes bravery and strength, as the Chinese people often refer to spirited dragon and dynamic tiger, or soaring dragon and leaping tiger.
"To meet the severe challenges facing humanity, we must 'add wings to the tiger' and act with the courage and strength of the tiger to overcome all obstacles on our way forward," Xi said.
Ecological Conservation & Economic Growth
China should never grow the economy at the cost of resource depletion and environmental degradation, nor should the country sacrifice growth to protect the environment, said the Chinese President.
Xi described economic development at the cost of environment as "draining a pond to get fish," and sacrificing growth to protect the environment as "climbing a tree to catch fish."
"Guided by our philosophy that clean waters and green mountains are just as valuable as gold and silver, China has carried out holistic conservation and systematic governance of its mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands and deserts," Xi said.
The country does everything it can to conserve the ecological system, intensify pollution prevention and control, and improve the living and working environment for its people, he said.
Future of China's Economy
"We have every confidence in the future of China's economy," Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Monday.
The Chinese economy enjoys a good momentum overall, Xi said, citing that the country's gross domestic product grew by around 8 percent year on year in 2021, achieving the dual target of fairly high growth and relatively low inflation.
Shifts in the domestic and international economic environment have brought tremendous pressure, but the fundamentals of the Chinese economy, characterized by strong resilience, enormous potential and long-term sustainability, remain unchanged, he said.
More Substantially, Equitably
China's development gains will benefit its entire people in a more substantial and equitable way, said the Chinese President.
"The common prosperity we desire is not egalitarianism," Xi said. "To use an analogy, we will first make the pie bigger, and then divide it properly through reasonable institutional arrangements."
"As a rising tide lifts all boats, everyone will get a fair share from development, and development gains will benefit all our people in a more substantial and equitable way," he said. Xi calls on world to follow logic of historical progress, ride tide of times
President Xi called on the world to "move forward by following the logic of historical progress, and develop by riding the tide of development of our times."
Citing a Chinese saying "the momentum of the world either flourishes or declines; the state of the world either progresses or regresses," Xi noted that the world is always developing through the movement of contradictions, and the history of humanity is a history of achieving growth by meeting various tests and of developing by overcoming various crises.
He said the world should learn from comparing long history cycles, and see the change in things through the subtle and minute.
"We need to foster new opportunities amidst crises, open up new horizons on a shifting landscape, and pool great strength to go through difficulties and challenges," he said.
Economic Globalization
President Xi said no "countercurrents" could stop the trend of economic globalization.
"Economic globalization is the trend of the times. Though countercurrents are sure to exist in a river, none could stop it from flowing to the sea," Xi said.
"Driving forces bolster the river's momentum, and resistance may yet enhance its flow. Despite the countercurrents and dangerous shoals along the way, economic globalization has never and will not veer off course," he said.
"Countries around the world should uphold true multilateralism," Xi said. "We should remove barriers, not erect walls. We should open up, not close off. We should seek integration, not decoupling. This is the way to build an open world economy."
A complicated relationship: Biden and Xi prepare for meeting
Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping have slurped noodles together in Beijing. They've shared deep thoughts about the meaning of America during an exchange on the Tibetan plateau. They've gushed to U.S. business leaders about developing a sincere respect for each other.
The American president has held up his relationship with Xi as evidence of his heartfelt belief that good foreign policy starts with building strong personal relationships.
But as the two leaders prepare to hold their first presidential meeting on Monday, the troubled U.S.-China relationship is demonstrating that the power of one of Biden’s greatest professed strengths as a politician — the ability to connect — has its limits.
Read: Biden-Xi set virtual summit for Monday to discuss tensions
“When it comes to U.S.-China relations, the gaps are so big and the trend lines are so problematic that the personal touch can only go so far,” said Matthew Goodman, who served as an Asia adviser on the National Security Council in the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations.
White House officials have set low expectations for Monday’s virtual meeting: No major announcements are expected and there’s no plan for the customary joint statement by the two countries at the end, according to administration officials.
The public warmth — Xi referred to Biden as his “old friend” when Biden visited China in 2013 while the then-U.S. vice president spoke of their “friendship” — has cooled now that both men are heads of state. Biden bristled in June when asked by a reporter if he would press his old friend to cooperate with a World Health Organization investigation into the coronavirus origins.
“Let’s get something straight: We know each other well; we’re not old friends,” Biden said. “It’s just pure business.”
Biden nonetheless believes a face-to-face meeting — even a virtual one like the two leaders will hold Monday evening — has its value.
“He feels that the history of their relationship, having spent time with him, allows him to be quite candid as he has been in the past and he will continue to be,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in previewing the encounter.
Biden and Xi, ages 78 and 68 respectively, first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both leaders say left a lasting impression.
Of late, there have been signs that there could be at least a partial thawing after the first nine months of the Biden administration were marked by the two sides trading recriminations and by unproductive exchanges between the presidents’ top advisers.
Last week, for example, the U.S. and China pledged at U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, to increase their cooperation and speed up action to rein in climate-damaging emissions.
Monday's meeting — the two leaders' third engagement since Biden became president — comes amid mounting tensions in the U.S.-China relationship. The two held long phone calls in February and September where they discussed human rights, trade, the pandemic and other issues.
Biden has made clear that he sees China as the United States' greatest national security and economic competitor and has tried to reframe American foreign policy to reflect that belief.
His administration has taken Beijing to task over committing human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in northwest China, squelching pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong and resisting global pressure to cooperate fully with investigations into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tensions have also risen as the Chinese military has flown increasing numbers of sorties near the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.
Chinese officials have signaled that Taiwan will be a top issue for the talks. Biden has made clear that his administration will abide by the long-standing U.S. “One China" policy, which recognizes Beijing but allows informal relations and defense ties with Taipei. Chinese military forces held exercises last week near Taiwan in response to a visit by a U.S. congressional delegation to the island.
Read: Biden winds up G-20 summit with dings at Russia, China
Other U.S. presidents have held that bonding with a geopolitical adversary can be a good foreign policy strategy. George W. Bush faced ridicule after his first meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin when he claimed that he had “looked the man in the eye” and “was able to get a sense of his soul.” Bush would go on to host the Russian leader at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, and bring him to his father’s estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, where the 43rd and 41st presidents took the Russian president fishing.
Putin ultimately frustrated Bush and the relationship was broken after Russia’s 2008 invasion of its neighbor Georgia.
Donald Trump went from disparaging North Korea’s Kim Jong Un as “rocket man” to declaring the two “fell in love” in an exchange of letters as the U.S. president unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Kim to give up the regime’s nuclear weapons program.
Biden’s personal approach to foreign policy is in part informed by the fact that he’s been on the international scene for much of the last half-century, author Evan Osnos noted in the biography “Joe Biden: The Life, the Run, and What Matters Now.”
“You can drop him into Kazakhstan or Bahrain, it doesn’t matter — he’s gonna find some Joe Blow that he met 30 years ago who’s now running the place,” Julianne Smith, a Biden adviser, told Osnos.
Some top Biden administration officials speculate that with Beijing planning to host the Winter Olympics in February and Xi preparing to be approved by Communist Party leaders to serve a third five-year term as president next October — unprecedented in recent Chinese history — that there's plenty of reason for the Chinese leader to look to stabilize the relationship in the near term, according to a person familiar with administration thinking. The individual insisted on anonymity to discuss private deliberations.
Slowing economic growth and a brewing housing crisis also loom large for Beijing. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a CBS' “Face the Nation” interview aired Sunday warned the deepening of Beijing's problems could “have global consequences.”
At the same time, Biden, who has seen his polling numbers diminish at home amid concerns about the lingering coronavirus pandemic, inflation and supply chain problems, is looking to find a measure of equilibrium on the most consequential foreign policy matter he faces.
Biden would have preferred to hold an in-person meeting with Xi, but Xi has not left China since before the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The virtual meeting was proposed after Biden mentioned during a September phone call with the Chinese leader that he would like to be able to see Xi again.
Biden-Xi set virtual summit for Monday to discuss tensions
President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping will hold their much-anticipated virtual summit on Monday evening as the two sides look to dial back tensions after a rough start to the U.S.-China relationship since Biden took office earlier this year.
The White House is setting low expectations for the video call between the leaders. Biden looks to stress that the two nations need to set guardrails in deepening areas of conflict in the increasingly complicated relationship between the two nations. White House officials said that no major announcements are expected to come from the meeting.
Read: Obama appeals to young activists to stay in climate fight
“I wouldn’t set the expectation ... that this is intended to have major deliverables or outcomes,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who added that the two leaders would discuss how to manage the countries’ competition and cooperate in areas where interests align.
The meeting will be the third engagement between the two leaders since February. It comes after the U.S. and China this week pledged at U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland to increase their cooperation and speed up action to rein in climate-damaging emissions.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi came to an agreement on holding the Biden-Xi virtual summit by year’s end when they met last month for talks in Zurich but the two sides had not settled on a date.
The virtual meeting was proposed after Biden, who spent a substantial amount of time with Xi when the two were vice presidents, mentioned during a September phone call with the Chinese leader that he would like to be able to see Xi again, according to the White House.
Xi has not left China during the coronavirus pandemic. White House officials proposed a virtual summit as the best available substitute for the two leaders to have a substantive conversation on a number of issues that have put strains on the U.S.-China relationship.
Read: Pfizer asks FDA to OK COVID-19 booster shots for all adults
“We hope the U.S. will work together with China to jointly strive to make the leaders’ summit a success and bring China-U.S. ties back to the right track of sound and stable development,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Friday.
There has been no shortage of tension in the relationship in recent months as Biden has made clear he sees Beijing’s actions on a number of fronts as concerning.
The president has criticized China for human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in northwest China, squelching pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong, and resisting global pressure to cooperate fully with investigations into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Tensions have also been exacerbated recently by the Chinese military’s flying dozens of sorties near the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.
The White House suggested that Biden would raise his concerns on many of those issues during Monday’s meeting. “There will be a broad range of topics that will be discussed and the President is certainly not going to hold back on areas where he is concerned,” Psaki said.
Biden, at the Group of 20 meeting in Rome and again at the U.N. climate gathering, criticized Xi for failing to show up to the summits, where world leaders discussed the way forward on the pandemic and steps to ease the impact of climate change.
“I think it’s been a big mistake, quite frankly, for China ... not showing up, “ Biden said in Glasgow. ”The rest of the world is going to look to China and say, what value added have they provided?”
Both leaders took part in Friday’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) virtual meeting, where leaders discussed efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic and support the global economic recovery.
APEC leaders meeting to chart path forward from pandemic
U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will have a rare virtual encounter this week as they gather online with other Pacific Rim leaders to chart a path to recovery out of the crisis brought on by the pandemic.
New Zealand is hosting this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, which culminates in a leader’s meeting on Saturday. Continued outbreaks of the coronavirus and related travel restrictions have confined the meeting to the virtual realm for a second straight year.
As usual, the 21 APEC members will be seeking areas where members can cooperate on easing barriers to trade and economic growth instead of trying to settle longstanding feuds.
The focus will be on “charting a path to recovery out of this once-in-a-century crisis,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, host of the leader’s meeting, said in a statement.
In all, APEC members account for nearly 3 billion people and about 60% of the world’s GDP. They span the Pacific rim, from Chile to Russia to Thailand to Australia.
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Officials say they’ve made significant progress during some 340 preliminary meetings. APEC members have agreed to reduce or eliminate many tariffs and border holdups on vaccines, masks and other medical products important to fighting the coronavirus, said Vangelis Vitalis, chair of the Senior Officials’ Meeting.
But big power frictions are the inevitable backdrop for the closed door summit meetings of APEC, which as an economic forum includes both Hong Kong and Taiwan in addition to communist-ruled mainland China.
Both Taiwan and China have put in applications to join a Pacific Rim trade group, the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, with Beijing saying it will block Taiwan’s bid on the basis that the democratically governed island refuses to accept that it’s part of China.
Stephen Hoadley, an associate professor of politics and international relations at the University of Auckland, said Biden will be looking to reverse the course set by predecessor Donald Trump, who spurned regional trade deals with his America First foreign policy approach.
Since Biden has taken office, Washington has shifted back to a more internationalist approach to trade liberalization, supporting global and regional efforts such as the rules-making World Trade Organization.
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However, Biden has kept most trade, technology and investment restrictions that Trump imposed on Chinese exports and companies in place while also moving to counter Beijing’s sway in the region.
One such effort is a recent new defense agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the U.S. that raised eyebrows because it did not include New Zealand or other U.S. allies. The development of nuclear submarines is a major part of the new defense arrangement, and New Zealand has a longstanding nuclear-free policy.
Hoadley said the China-U.S. rivalry can be seen even in the way they describe the region, with China calling it the Asia-Pacific and the U.S. having switched years ago to calling it the Indo-Pacific, to include the democratic counterweight of India — which is not an APEC member.
Apart from the geopolitical tensions simmering at all times, the pandemic has added to uncertainty in a region that has long been viewed as an increasingly important engine of global growth.
Many economies are still struggling to emerge from the downturns that hit the region hard in 2020, stalling travel and many other activities. Prolonged outbreaks of COVID-19 infections, slow progress in vaccinations and other disruptions both to manufacturing and shipping have added to uncertainty and dragged millions of the region’s most vulnerable people back into poverty.
“Unfortunately, too, there’s been rising protectionism around the globe, and that has also made for an incredibly challenging environment for us to be operating in,” Vitalis said during a media briefing.
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He said there are areas of common ground, including improving environmental sustainability, and enhancing the untapped potential of Indigenous groups.
New Zealand’s Trade Minister Damien O’Connor said Tuesday that APEC should send a powerful message to the world ahead of a World Trade Organization meeting.
“We are facing the biggest economic shock in 75 years. We know that trade will be a strong driver in our recovery. We absolutely cannot afford to turn our attention away from an institution that has underpinned APEC’s work since its inception,” O’Connor said.
Ahead of the main leader’s meeting APEC will host a youth summit and its usual CEO summit featuring addresses by leaders and a keynote speech by human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. Ardern and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will hold a dialogue on how the pandemic has changed the world.
The pandemic APEC meetings lack the pomp and glamor of past in-person gatherings. No fancy shirts or gala balls. New Zealand made the decision last year to switch to a virtual summit. Malaysia also opted to host the 2020 APEC leader’s meeting online due to the pandemic.
Tensions grow as US, allies deepen Indo-Pacific involvement
With increasingly strong talk in support of Taiwan, a new deal to supply Australia with nuclear submarines, and the launch of a European strategy for greater engagement in the Indo-Pacific, the U.S. and its allies are becoming growingly assertive in their approach toward a rising China.
China has bristled at the moves, and the growing tensions between Beijing and Washington prompted U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the weekend to implore President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to repair their “completely dysfunctional” relationship, warning they risk dividing the world.
As the U.N. General Assembly opened Tuesday, both leaders chose calming language, with Biden insisting “we are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs,” and Xi telling the forum that “China has never, and will never invade or bully others or seek hegemony.”
But the underlying issues have not changed, with China building up its military outposts as it presses its maritime claims over critical sea lanes, and the U.S. and its allies growing louder in their support of Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory, and deepening military cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.
Read: Nuclear submarine deal to reshape Indo-Pacific relations
On Friday, Biden hosts the leaders of Japan, India and Australia for an in-person Quadrilateral Security Dialogue for broad talks including the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, but also how to keep the Indo-Pacific, a vast region spanning from India to Australia, “free and open,” according to the White House.
It comes a week after the dramatic announcement that Australia would be dropping a contract for conventional French submarines in favor of an Anglo-American offer for nuclear-powered vessels, a bombshell that overshadowed the unveiling of the European Union’s strategy to boost political and defense ties in the Indo-Pacific.
“One thing is certain, that everyone is pivoting toward the Indo-Pacific,” said Garima Mohan, an Asia program fellow with the German Marshall Fund think tank.
As partners pursue moves that play to their own strengths and needs, however, the past week has underscored the lack of coordination as a networked security strategy develops, she said.
“Not everyone has the same threat assessment of China,” she said in a telephone interview from Berlin.
The EU policy emphasizes the need for dialogue with Beijing, to encourage “China to play its part in a peaceful and thriving Indo-Pacific region,” while at the same time proposing an “enhanced naval presence” and expanded security cooperation with regional partners.
It also notes China’s increased military buildup, and that “the display of force and increasing tensions in regional hotspots such as in the South and East China Sea, and in the Taiwan Strait, may have a direct impact on European security and prosperity.”
Germany, which has close economic ties to China, got a wake-up call last week when China rejected its request for a port call for the frigate Bavaria, which is currently conducting maneuvers in the Indo-Pacific.
“China is telling them this inclusive approach is not going to work, so in a way it’s a rude awakening for Berlin,” Mohan said. “You have to take a position, you can’t have your cake and eat it too, and if you have an Indo-Pacific strategy ... you can’t make it neutral.”
Other EU countries, most notably France, have also sent naval assets for exercises in the Indo-Pacific, and Britain has had a whole carrier strike group conducting exercises for several months as London pursues the new tilt toward the region recommended by a recent British government review of defense and foreign policy.
Read: EU stepping up its strategic engagement with Indo-Pacific region, adopts cooperation strategy
China’s Foreign Ministry said after rejecting the Bavaria’s port call that it remained “willing to carry out friendly exchanges with Germany on the basis of mutual respect and mutual trust,” but made clear it was displeased with the increased naval presence in the region.
“Individual powers... have repeatedly dispatched military aircraft and warships to the South China Sea for some time in the name of exercising freedom of navigation to flex muscle, stir up trouble and deliberately provoke conflicts on maritime issues,” spokesman Zhao Lijian said. “China’s determination to safeguard national and territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests is unwavering, and will continue to properly handle differences with the countries concerned through consultations and negotiations.”
Beijing was less reserved in its reaction to the submarine deal with Australia, under which the U.S. and Britain will help Canberra construct nuclear-powered submarines, calling it “highly irresponsible” and saying it would “seriously damage regional peace and stability.”
In signing the pact with the U.S. and Britain, Australia canceled a $66 billion deal with France for diesel-powered submarines, infuriating Paris, which recalled its ambassadors to Washington and Canberra and suggested it calls into question the entire cooperative effort to blunt China’s growing influence.
While clearly irked by the surprise deal, many observers have suggested that the vociferous reaction from France may be more directed toward a domestic audience, where President Emmanuel Macron faces a reelection bid early next year.
But there was clear disappointment that the U.S. seemed to be ignoring France’s own engagement in the region by not informing them in advance, said Laurence Nardon, an expert at the French Institute for International Relations.
“There was a way to do this while keeping Europeans in the loop,” she said. “The Indo-Pacific is important for the EU too; it’s not one or the other.”
In a call with Macron late Wednesday, Biden reaffirmed “the strategic importance of French and European engagement in the Indo-Pacific region,” according to a joint statement.
More than just a decision to pursue nuclear submarines, the deal was a clear signal of Australia committing long term to being in the U.S. camp on China policy, said Euan Graham, an expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Singapore.
The submarine deal seems likely to exacerbate the ongoing trade war between China and Australia, and Australia is hoping to strike a free trade deal with Quad partner India to help offset the economic impact.
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While the European strategy outline will take time, the plan provides clarity in how the EU is prepared to work with the U.S. and its allies in the region — something that has been lacking in the past.
“There’s a lack of understanding on the U.S. side of why Europe is interested in the Indo-Pacific and exactly what kind of role it wants to play,” Mohan said in a podcast on the issue. “There’s also a lack of understanding of the U.S. approach.”
In the outline of the strategy, the EU broadly looks to pool its resources for greater effect, and to work more closely with the Quad countries, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and others.
It also envisions enhancing current operations, such as the Atalanta anti-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa and in the western Indian Ocean, and the expansion of the EU maritime security and safety mission in the wider Indian Ocean area, which has already been broadened to Southeast Asia.
“The European assessment is very realistic about what they can and cannot do in the region,” Mohan said. “It’s about making sure the resources, the spending, that’s done right and has an impact.”