On November 15^th, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met near San Francisco on the side-lines of the annual APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum), as French journal Le Monde reports. This is the first meeting between the two leaders since November 14, 2022, when they met during the G20 held in Bali, Indonesia. Hopefully, this new meeting will renew a degree of stability in rapidly deteriorating Sino-American relations.

After the meeting, President Joe Biden described his Chinese counterpart as “a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” when speaking to a CNN reporter. “Anyway, we made progress”, he added. This unexpected comment was denounced by a spokesperson of Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry as extremely erroneous and politically irresponsible. The same spokesperson furthermore said that those remarks seriously violate diplomatic etiquette and Chinese political dignity, as CNN reports.

On the other hand, Chinese state media and news agencies like Xinhua report that President Xi stressed the fact that “China has no plans to surpass or unseat the United States, and the United States should not scheme to suppress or contain China”. However, Biden later told a press conference at the Filoli estate that his talks with Xi Jinping were “some of the most constructive and productive discussions” they ever had, according to Le Monde. Overall, both leaders “emphasised the need for mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, maintaining communication and conflict prevention” during the November 15 meeting, according to Xinhua.

Mounting Sino-American tensions are due to many geopolitical factors. Both the Ukraine and Gaza Wars were discussed at APEC, although many leaders in attendance believed that such issues were not within APEC’s remit. Moreover, two specific events explain why there have been so few Sino-American presidential summits so far, apart from wider geopolitical and economic issues: Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, and the Chinese balloon incident. Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August 2022 was for many people a clear sign of America’s incoherent foreign policy in the Pacific. Pelosi declared that her visit was a sign of Washington’s “unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan’s vibrant democracy”, but the PRC thought otherwise and began to stage military exercises near Taiwan in response to Pelosi’s provocative remarks.

Secondly, in late January 2023, a high-altitude balloon originating from China flew across North American airspace, including Alaska, western Canada, and the contiguous United States, and it was shot down by the US Air Force on February 4^th. The Pentagon described it as a “surveillance balloon”, and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken postponed a long-awaited diplomatic visit to Beijing as a result.

On November 15, Biden and Jinping agreed to restore military communications that were severed after the former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. They also agreed that China would crackdown on the production of ingredients for the drug fentanyl, responsible for a deadly epidemic of opioid abuse in the United States. Furthermore, Biden and Xi discussed the wars in Gaza and Ukraine (where both countries are backing opposing sides) without finding any solutions to these conflicts. Notably, after the talks, Xi had some strong words for Biden, particularly about Taiwan, as Le Monde reports: “The US side should […] stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification,” Xi told Biden, according to a message from China’s foreign ministry, “[…] China will realise reunification, and this is unstoppable.”

In conclusion, this meeting fell far short from renewing peaceful relations between China and the USA. However, their shared will to prevent further escalation is clear, and it should be welcomed and encouraged by the international community. As Biden and Jinping were shaking hands in California, they were aiming at preventing growing tensions between the world’s largest economies from spiralling into catastrophic conflicts.