BEIJING. The President of the United States, Joe Biden, and the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, will meet for the first time in their respective capacity as heads of state on the sidelines of the Bali summit, over which the repercussions of the war in Ukraine and the difficulties of the post-pandemic global economic recovery. Taiwan’s crux and economic-trade relations will be among the hot topics of a dialogue that has cracked under the weight of tariff disputes, allegations in Beijing of violating human rights against Uighurs, repression in Hong Kong and of other chapters, only apparently minor, which have torn mutual trust. One of these was recalled by Biden himself, in Phnom Penh, during the interview with the host of the ASEAN and East Asia Summit, Hun Sen: the US president asked the Cambodian prime minister “full transparency on the activities of the People’s Republic of China “at the Ream naval base, built secretly by Beijing, according to an article in the Washington Post in recent months, and which would be used by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.
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A reference to the unprecedented missile escalation of North Korea, which seems to presage a new nuclear test, cannot be missing either. Pyongyang’s continued provocations, Biden said on the flight to Phnom Penh, warning Xi, will only lead to an increase in the US military presence in East Asia. Then there is the personal aspect of tomorrow’s summit, with Biden and Xi who present themselves at the meeting strengthened in their image and leadership. The US president arrives at the summit celebrating the majority in the Senate, reached just as in Phnom Penh, the US has established an overall strategic partnership with the countries of Southeast Asia, inserting another piece in the complicated puzzle of the “free Indo-Pacific and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure ”, as Biden defined it, and which in the US vision implies the containment of China at the regional level.
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Reassured by the outcome of the polls, Biden will meet the Chinese leader who was reconfirmed at the top of power only last month, with the third, unprecedented, mandate as general secretary of the Communist Party, a title that gives him undisputed leadership over the state and that makes Xi the most powerful leader in China since Mao Zedong. It is not the first time ever that Biden and Xi have met in person: it had already happened in 2011 and 2012, when they were both vice presidents of their respective countries and relations were dominated by “great optimism”. A very different scenario from today, on which mutual distrust and continuous exchange of accusations weigh. The goal, for Biden, is to make clear the “red lines” of China and the United States. It would already be a step forward, but expectations are not high. Washington and Beijing have been sending messages to each other for days on their respective priorities and on the contents of the meeting. There will be no “fundamental concessions” from the United States on the Taiwan issue, Biden said, nor Chinese second thoughts on ties with Moscow, “solid as a rock,” the foreign ministry warned.
Biden wants to find common ground on which to develop bilateral relations, but without sacrificing anything of the harmony that Washington has with Taipei, and which angers Beijing. The United States will report the contents of the summit between Biden and Xi to the island, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, irritating Beijing. The United States, spokesman Zhao Lijian replied, “does not jeopardize relations”, and does not interfere in an issue that, for China, is purely internal. The meeting was preceded by massive Chinese military exercises around the island last August, which Washington called an “exaggerated” reaction to the visit to Taipei of the speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Beijing does not intend to discount the Taiwan issue: Xi promised, in front of the delegates to the twentieth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, that China will not give up the use of force to take control of the island, over which it claims sovereignty. The war in Ukraine looms over the Bali summit between Biden and Xi, and there are no turning points to report at the Asean summits in recent days.
The US president seems to see cracks in relations between Beijing and Moscow, cracks that Beijing denies, but the influence of China on Russia is now under observation: the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has asked Xi to put pressure on Putin to get to the end of hostilities and on that occasion, the Chinese president had launched the clearest message expressed so far against nuclear weapons, or even the threat of their use, in the ongoing conflict. China has so far refrained from openly condemning Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine, but Beijing is concerned about the repercussions of the war in Ukraine, and the general climate that views China’s role on the international stage with growing suspicion. Xi promised new openings to the Chinese system, but at the same time stressed – twice since he was re-elected to the top of the CCP – that the Armed Forces must concentrate “all their energies” on fighting capacity in war. In Xi’s vision “the world is not peaceful”, competition is “increasingly evident”, and there is a risk of clashes between blocks. There are fuses to defuse, which Xi pointed out last September, at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, with Putin present.