Biden's last meeting with Xi focuses on North Korea, China-Russia cooperation concerns
President Biden is expected to urge China's Xi Jinping to curb North Korea's support for Russia's war in Ukraine during their farewell meeting.
President Joe Biden is expected to use his final meeting with China's leader, Xi Jinping, to urge him to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia's war on Ukraine.
Saturday's meetings take place on the margins of Peru's annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, little over two months before Biden leaves office to be succeeded by Republican President-elect Donald Trump.
It will be Biden's last meeting with Xi, whom the Democrat regards as his most important peer on the global stage.
According to officials, Biden will be calling for Xi to increase Chinese cooperation in order to avoid an already perilous situation with North Korea from developing further.
On Friday, Biden, South Korean President Yoon Seok Yul, and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba condemned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's decision to send thousands of troops to assist Moscow in repelling Ukrainian forces who have seized territory in Russia's Kursk border region.
Biden called it “dangerous and destabilising cooperation”.
White House officials have also expressed dissatisfaction with Beijing, which accounts for the vast majority of North Korea's commerce, for not doing more to constrain Pyongyang.
Biden, Yoon and Ishiba spent most of their 50-minute discussion focused on the issue, agreeing it “should not be in Beijing's interest to have this destabilising cooperation in the region", according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss their private conversations.
According to US and South Korean intelligence authorities, Russia has also received artillery and other armaments from North Korea. And the United States, Japan, and South Korea have expressed concern over Pyongyang's increased frequency of ballistic missile testing.
Kim ordered testing exercises in advance of this month's US election and claims to have made progress in efforts to develop the capability to strike the US mainland.
Biden and Xi have much more to talk about than North Korea, including China's indirect backing for Russia, human rights concerns, technology, and Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims.
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There is also great doubt about what lies ahead in the US-China relationship under Trump, who campaigned on imposing 60% taxes on Chinese goods.
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Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden says it plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45 per cent next year.
“When Xi meets with Biden, part of his audience is not solely the White House or the US government,” said Victor Cha, an analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It's about American CEOs and continued US investment or trying to renew US investment in China and get rid of the perception that there's a hostile business environment in China.”
According to White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan, Biden administration officials would warn the Trump team that handling the fierce battle with Beijing will likely be the most major foreign policy problem they confront.
Administration officials are fearful that tensions between China and Taiwan might escalate into all-out war if either side makes a mistake, with disastrous global ramifications.
Sullivan stated that the Trump administration will have to deal with the Chinese military's regular intimidation of its regional neighbours.
Skirmishes between the Philippine and Chinese coast guards in the disputed South China Sea have become a persistent problem. Chinese coast guard ships also regularly approach disputed Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands near Taiwan.
Ishiba met with Xi on Friday. Afterward, the Japanese prime minister said he told Xi he was "extremely concerned about the situation in the East China Sea and escalating activity of the People's Liberation Army”.
The White House laboured for months to set up Saturday's meeting between Xi and Biden, which the Democrat desperately wanted to undertake before leaving office in January.
Sullivan flew to Beijing in late August to meet with his Chinese colleague as well as Xi. Beijing agreed to have the conference earlier this week.
Also read: South Korean President, China's Xi Jinping hold rare meeting, pledge cooperation
It's a watershed moment for Biden as he ends his more than 50-year political career. He considered his connection with Xi as one of the most important on the world scene, and he worked hard to cultivate it.
Biden and Xi first got to know each other on travels across the US and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both have said left a lasting impression.
But the last four years have presented a steady stream of difficult moments.
The FBI this week offered new details of a federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into US telecommunications networks. The initial findings have revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics.
US intelligence authorities have also reported that China has increased shipments to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics, and other technologies, which Moscow is utilising to manufacture missiles, tanks, planes, and other weapons for use in its conflict against Ukraine.
Tensions rose last year when Biden ordered the downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the United States.
With inputs from (AP)
