WOW! BIDEN-XI MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME IN A YEAR AMID TENSIONS AND WARS.IT WAS AN EVENTFUL MEETING WITH XI JINPING IN SAN FRANCISCO.

Worthy audience all went well,when mega events reshape local issues are sorted out .As you may recall on 24 February 2022 Ukraine war surprisingly put the diplomatic norms on back burner, unfortunately the same year ?world remained stuck over the hopelessness about global peace China severed military contact after House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022. In 2023 Palestine-Israel, embroil hit the global economy, peace & regional stability of west & east closer to nuclear flash point. On 14 /15 Nov 23 Xi arrived in San Francisco at a time of?economic challenges back in China, where an ageing population and growing debt have hampered its recovering from the shock of Covid-19 pandemic. On Wednesday 17 /18 November 2023 something different occured. USA president Joe Biden & Chinese Premier Xi Jinping? reached an agreement to resume military-to-military communications. That means defense secretary Lloyd Austin will speak to his Chinese counterpart once someone has been appointed, the official said. Similar engagements will take place up and down the military chain of command. The official said Biden was “very clear” to Xi that such communications between US and China should be institutionalized and that they are “not done as a gift or as a favor to either side. “The US and Chinese leaders agreed on sidelines of A pec summit Joe Biden and?Xi Jinping?sat down just outside San Francisco. It was almost exactly one year since their last encounter, in Bali, Indonesia. Biden said the meeting included?“some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had”?and will lead to stronger dialogue.

1. In a bit low tone they disagreed on Taiwan. Worthy audience, Biden and Xi held a “clear-headed” and “not heated” discussion on Taiwan,?the most sensitive topic in the relationship, with the greatest potential to spiral into wider conflict. Biden said he reaffirmed the United States’ “One China” policy and its belief that any resolution must be peaceful. “I’m not going to change that,” Biden said. “That’s not going to change. “Biden said in the press conference after the meeting that he and Xi talked about Taiwan’s election and Biden “expects no interference” from China’s government .Xi warned Biden at the summit to stop arming Taiwan, according to a readout from China’s foreign ministry. “The US side should stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification,” Xi told Biden. Biden reiterated, however, that the US would continue to arm Taiwan as a deterrent. The US had maintained strategic ambiguity about whether it would directly intervene to protect Taiwan in the event of an invasion by Beijing.

?2. China will curb the production of fentanyl-related products. Worthy readers, Biden and Xi agreed China would?stem the export of items related to the production of the opioid fentanyl, a leading cause of drug overdoses in the United States. “It’s going to save lives,” Biden said, adding he appreciated Xi’s “commitment” on the issue. Under the agreement, China will go directly after specific chemical companies that make fentanyl precursors, a senior US official told reporters. He vowed to “trust but verify” Chinese actions on the drug. When asked by a reporter whether he trusted Xi in the contest of their joint efforts to reduce the flow fentanyl, Biden said, “I know the man, I know his modus operandi … he’s been straight.”

3. Biden asked Xi to use his influence on Iran and Russia. Worthy readers, Beijing has long sought to be treated as an equal by Washington, and Biden used those ambitions with Xi to address two devastating wars. In their private session, Biden appealed to Xi to use his influence to try to calm global tensions, particularly to try to pressure Iran not to widen the conflict between Israel and Hamas. A US official said Biden did most of the talking on the matter, and that Xi mostly listened, and that it was too soon to tell what sort of message China was sending to Tehran and how it was being received.Biden has also pressed Xi to continue to withhold military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

4. Xi asked Biden to lift sanctions and change export controls. According to Beijing’s description of the meeting, Xi pressed Biden to lift sanctions and change policies on export controls for sensitive equipment. “Stifling China’s technological progress is nothing but a move to contain China’s high-quality development and deprive the Chinese people of their right to development,” the readout said. There’s no indication that Biden will agree to take such steps. But even the meeting itself could calm nerves in China, where there have been signs foreign investment is tapering off.

5. Biden repeated his view that Xi is a dictator. Worthy audience, China hails Xi-Biden meeting despite 'dictator' remarks& committed that meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden as "historic" and "constructive "Biden said he had not changed his view that the Chinese leader was a dictator. At the end of Biden’s news conference after the meeting, he was asked whether he still held the view, having said it in June. “Look, he is. He’s a dictator in the sense that he’s a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden said. There was no immediate reaction from the Chinese delegation. When Biden made a similar dictator reference in June, China called the remarks absurd and a provocation. During the meeting Xi told Biden that the negative views of the Communist Party in the United States were unfair, a US official told reporters.

• "The meeting was positive, comprehensive and constructive... It would be a new starting point for stabilizing relations between China and the US," the presenter said, reading from the same article that had been published on People's Daily earlier.
• In an attempt to portray the meeting as putting fraught relations back on course, CCTV showed footage of Mr Xi being "warmly greeted" by his US counterpart upon his arrival at the Filoli Estate, the country house near San Francisco where they met. "Biden also invited Xi to join him for a walk around the estate and personally escorted him to his car [at the end of the meeting]," wrote People's Daily.
• Touting "extensive achievements" from the meeting,?a Global Times editorial?on Friday wrote: "We should make the cooperation list longer and the pie of cooperation bigger. Only by doing so can China-US relations be steered toward a healthy, stable, and sustainable direction."
• Chinese state media's tone on the US had already shifted earlier this week - quite abruptly - in the lead-up to the long-awaited meeting. The usual anti-US rhetoric was paused as outlets instead pushed messages emphasizing engagement and cooperation.
• State news agency Xinhua on Monday 19 Nov 23 published a story on Mr Xi's friendships with American people. "The enduring strength of such amicable bonds has always served as a wellspring of vitality for bilateral ties, both in favorable and in challenging times," said the piece, which was accompanied by a dozen pictures of Mr Xi's visits to the US.The sudden shift in tone was not lost on everyone: "Love or hate - the difference is just a moment," a user wrote on Chinese social media platform Weibo.Others were posting scene-by-scene updates from the meeting, with several hashtags related to it trending throughout the day.
• The hashtag "the US reiterates it doesn't support Taiwan independence" dominated Weibo for several hours. Other hashtags highlighted engagements between the two leaders. Users seemed excited over personal details such as Mr Xi being presented a Golden State Warriors' jersey, Mr Biden walking Mr Xi to his made-in-China Hongqi car and describing the vehicle as "beautiful".
• "This [meeting] is a historic moment," one Weibo user wrote, while another struck a cautionary tone: "I hope the US can act on their words.” Some reacted with disbelief and amusement to Mr Biden's "dictator" remark, although it was swiftly cut from official broadcasts within China."If he said 'Xi is China's emperor' Xi would have loved it," another user quipped on X, which is banned in Chinna.
• When Chinese President Xi Jinping met executives for dinner on Wednesday night in San Francisco, he was greeted with not one, but three standing ovations from the U.S. business community. It was one of several public relations wins for the Chinese leader on his first trip in six years to the United States, where he and President Joe Biden?reached agreements?covering fentanyl, military communications and artificial intelligence on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. All three were outcomes the United States had sought from China rather than the other way around, said two people briefed on the trip.
• But Xi appeared to have achieved his own aims: earning U.S. policy concessions in exchange for promises of cooperation, an easing of bilateral tensions that will allow more focus on economic growth, and a chance to appeal to foreign investors who increasingly shun China.?
• China's economy is slowing and earlier this month it reported its?first quarterly deficit in foreign direct investment. And the ruling Communist Party has battled political intrigues that have raised questions about Xi's decision-making, including the sudden and?unexplained removals?of his foreign minister and defense minister.
• "If the U.S. and China can manage their differences ... it will mean that Xi Jinping doesn't have to divert all of his attention to that (bilateral relations)," said Alexander Neill, an adjunct fellow at Hawaii's Pacific Forum think-tank."He needs to focus on his domestic agenda which is incredibly pressing."
• Securing Xi's promise of Chinese cooperation on stemming the flow of fentanyl to the United States was high on Biden's to-do list for the summit. A senior U.S. official said the agreement under which China would go after specific companies that produce fentanyl precursors was made on a "trust but verify" basis.
• In return, the U.S. government on Thursday?removed?a Chinese public security forensic institute from a Commerce Department trade sanction list, where it was placed in 2020 over alleged abuses against Uyghurs, a long-sought diplomatic aim for China.
• Critics warned removing sanctions against the institute signals to Beijing that U.S. entity listings are negotiable, and have questioned the Biden administration's commitment to pressuring China over what it says is the Chinese government's genocide of Uyghurs."This undermines the credibility of our entity list and our moral authority," said a spokesperson for the Republican-led House of Representative's select committee on China.
• On top of that, Biden's Republican opponents argue the U.S. is missing an opportunity by not leveraging China's flagging economic momentum for more diplomatic gains.
• Biden also hyped as a success an agreement to resume military dialogues cut by China following then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's 2022 trip to Chinese-claimed Taiwan.But while Beijing would welcome lower tensions, this is unlikely to change Chinese military behavior the U.S. sees as dangerous, such as intercepts of U.S. ships and aircraft in international waters that have led to a number of near-misses. “China fears hotlines could be used as a potential pretext for a U.S. presence in areas it claims as its own," said Craig Singleton, a China expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
• Biden administration officials have acknowledged that creating functional military relations won't be as easy as semi-regular meetings between defense officials.
• "This is a long, hard, slow slog and the Chinese have to see value in that mil-mil before they'll do it. That's not going to be a favor to us," one senior Biden administration told Reuters in October in the run-up to the Xi-Biden meeting.
• In his public remarks to Biden, Xi suggested China sought peaceful coexistence with the United States, and he told business leaders China was ready to be a "partner and friend" to the U.S., words partially aimed at a business community alarmed by China's crackdown on various industries and the use of exit bans and detentions against some executives.Similarly, Xi's televised garden walk with Biden, and the largely respectful reception given to Xi by his American hosts, was highlighted in China's tightly controlled media to show a domestic audience that their president is managing the country's most important economic and political relationship.
• "Xi Jinping may have made the calculation that overhyping the American threat does China and his standing in the party and the party itself more harm than good," said Drew Thompson, a former Pentagon official who is now a scholar at the National University of Singapore."The fact that we are debating whether China is investible is a real problem for China."
• At the same time, Xi reiterated to Biden points that he made earlier this year to Russian President Vladimir Putin, urging the U.S. president to view U.S.-China relations through "accelerating global transformations unseen in a century."
• Analysts say that is code for the belief that China - and Russia - are remolding the U.S.-led international system.Still, this time pragmatism may have outweighed ideology.
• China recognizes it's still necessary for its economic progress to have somewhat normal relations with the U.S. and Western countries, said Li Mingjiang, a professor at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore."It's the fundamental driving force behind the meeting."
• Reporting by Michael Martina and Greg Torode; Additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington, and Antoni Slodkowski and Laurie Chen in Beijing; Editing by Don Durfee and Tom Hogue.?
• 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.

7.? Conclusion 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 counternarcotic 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.
• The Us 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 US 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.WELL DONE JOE BIDEN ,WELL DONE XIJINGPING