What is at stake in the meeting between Biden and Xi in China on Monday

Biden: Towards the Emergence of the United States in the Post-Pandel Era after the Great War of 1812

Seated next to Xi in a Beijing hotel, Biden told a room of Chinese and American business leaders about his “great optimism about the next 30 years” for bilateral relations and praised Xi for being “straightforward.”

The document, required by Congress, comes 21 months into Biden’s term. The broad contours of the strategy have been in evidence over the course of the President’s tenure, including a focus on rebuilding global partnerships and countering China and Russia.

Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser said that the strategy made clear that the White House was not viewing the world solely through the lens of strategic competition.

He said that they would not leave the future vulnerable to the whims of those who didn’t share their vision for a free, open, prosperous and secure world. “As the world continues to navigate the lingering impacts of the pandemic and global economic uncertainty, there is no nation better positioned to lead with strength and purpose than the United States of America.”

Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system, recklessly violating the basics of the international order, as its brutal war of aggression against Ukrainians has shown. “(China), by contrast, is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to advance that objective.”

He said the decisive decade is crucial for defining the terms of competition and for getting ahead of massive challenges that if we lose the time this decade, we will not able to keep pace with.

Equally, Xi’s public comments before the talks that “a statesman should think about and know where to lead his country. He should make sure he knows how to get along with the rest of the world, since China has become a major world power. But they could also be read as the kind of lecture that Washington once delivered to Chinese leaders that Xi is now taking the opportunity to throw back at the US.

On Sunday, as he presented himself to a congress of China’s ruling elite as the leader whose tough policies had saved the nation from the ravages of the Pandemic, he stated that he was now focused on securing China’s rise.

But his praise was coupled with a warning that the nation need to stand behind the party in order to deal with an increasingly turbulent world. He distrusted the world’s other great power, even though he didn’t mention the US by name.

“Be mindful of dangers in the midst of peace,” Mr. Xi said. “Get the house in good repair before rain comes, and prepare to undergo the major tests of high winds and waves, and even perilous, stormy seas.”

Concrete evidence of Mr. Xi’s claimed “patience” and willingness to engage constructively would reduce the urgency of growing calls in the United States for a new policy framework that would assert a clearer American commitment to defending Taiwan.

The long-term risk is that the impulse to counter every threat or challenge by the other will make it difficult to focus resources and attention on achieving positive priorities and outcomes. In the United States, escalated competition could exacerbate domestic divisions and undermine democracy. Already, increased xenophobia and anti-Asian violence in America, along with ramped-up efforts to protect research security, have led more than 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists working in the United States — including naturalized citizens and permanent residents — to consider leaving the country.

China is watching closely as well. According to the appointment of new military leaders from China’s Eastern Theater Command, which covers Taiwan, the island is now a priority for China’s fighting forces. Last week he told the military to be focused on fighting.

Chinese President Mao Zedong in the Light of his Vision: Progress, Progress, Implications, and State of the U.S

No other leader has had a third term since Mao Zedong, who founded the People’s Republic of China. This break from historical norms would represent China moving into a new era, according to Yun Sun, a senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

“This is one of the areas that he is going to prevail in, because it’s an area that is similar to domestic reform and economic policy,” Sun said. “These people are going to operationalize his vision and his strategy with even more momentum and more precision.”

Sun thinks that political loyalists of the leader of the nation will be appointed to important positions to implement his vision.

Sun predicts that there will be voices within the government that don’t believe in China’s policies towards the U.S.

The US hopes to cooperate with China in areas such as climate change and the ongoing provocation of North Korea, but they are among other key topics on the agenda.

But that perception — and the resulting actions from the U.S., such as high-level congressional visits from the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — has led to something of a catch-22 situation, Li said.

“You get this kind of back and forth where the U.S. views its actions as being in response to China’s, while China thinks it’s in response to U.S.”

Meanwhile, the tech industry has become a larger priority for China, especially as the country moves toward the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the centennial of the People’s Republic of China in 2049, in which Xi aims to make China a modern socialist country.

China has done more to bolster its research and innovation capacity as this has become more of a focus, Li said, and that has caused people in the U.S. to think about their own countries’ supply chains being different from China’s.

That’s led to what Li said is essentially an impasse. Progress can be achieved only when it will prove to both countries that they’ve got what it takes.

China’s Covid-19 Demonstration: How the Xi Pedestrian Solved His Controversy

As she walked into the campus of the University of London last Friday morning, her nerves ran high. She’d planned to arrive early enough that the campus would be deserted, but her fellow students were already beginning to filter in to start their day.

She pasted one of the students on the notice board because she had to make sure that no one was watching them.

In English, the statement was, “life, not zero- Covid policy, freedom not martial-lawish lockdown, dignity not lies, reform not cultural revolution, votes not dictatorship, citizens not slaves.”

Chen tried to share the protest on the super app, but it was blocked. So he thought to himself: why don’t I write the slogans in nearby places to let more people know about him?

Over the past week, as party elites gathered in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to extoll Xi and his policies at the 20th Party Congress, anti-Xi slogans echoing the Sitong Bridge banners have popped up in a growing number of Chinese cities and hundreds of universities worldwide.

In China, the slogans were scrawled on walls and doors in public bathrooms – one of the last places spared the watchful eyes of the country’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras.

CNN spoke with two Chinese citizens who scribbled protest slogans in bathroom stalls and half a dozen overseas Chinese students who put up anti-Xi posters on their campuses. As with Jolie, CNN agreed to protect their identities with pseudonyms and anonymity due to the sensitivity of their actions.

“Maybe (the bridge protester) is the only one with such courage and willingness to sacrifice, but there may be millions of other Chinese people who share his views,” said Matt, a Chinese student at Columbia University in New York.

As China’s online censors went into overdrive last week to scrub out all discussions about the Sitong Bridge protest, some social media users shared an old Chinese saying: “A tiny spark can set the prairie ablaze.”

Critics of Xi have paid a heavy price. Two years ago, Ren Zhiqiang, a Chinese billionaire who criticized Xi’s handling of China’s initial Covid-19 outbreak and called the top leader a power-hungry “clown,” was jailed for 18 years on corruption charges.

The risks of speaking out did not deter the senior from university in eastern China. In a bathroom stall, the man left a message in English to share his call for reform and freedom. Below the message, he drew a picture of Winnie the Pooh wearing a crown, with a “no” sign drawn over it. (Xi has been compared to the chubby cartoon bear by Chinese social media users.)

There was also the fear of being found out by the school – and the consequences, but he managed to push it aside. Wu, whose own political awakening came in high school when he heard about the Tiananmen Square massacre by chance, hoped his scribbles could cause a ripple of change – however small – among those who saw them.

“Just like Xi’s nickname ‘the Accelerator-in-Chief,’ he is leading the country into the abyss … The most desperate thing is that through the [Party Congress], Xi Jinping will likely establish his status as the emperor and double down on his policies.”

The economy is faltering, and censorship is becoming ever more stringent, according to Chen Qiang, a fresh graduate in southwestern China.

The movement was dubbed the “Toilet Revolution” by some because of its ironic statement against the campaign to improve the sanitary conditions at public restrooms in China.

Among the posters on the notice boards of Goldsmiths, the University of London, is one with a photo of the Sitong Bridge protest, which showed a plume of dark smoke billowing up from the bridge.

The most important thing that I can do now is put up protest posters, because of my lack of courage, not because of my ability.

There was a sense of guilt expressed by others. I feel embarrassed. If I were in Beijing now, I would never have the courage to do such a thing,” said Yvonne Li, who graduated from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands last year.

“I really wanted to cry when I first saw the protest on Instagram. I felt politically depressed reading Chinese news everyday. I didn’t think I had any hope. But when I saw this man who was so brave, I realized there is still light in the dark.

As a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, Teng Biao is struck by the speed and spread of the overseas opposition to the Chinese president.

Posters with the slogan “Not My President” and “Xi’s face” appeared in some universities, but the scale paled in comparison to what had appeared in China when presidential term limits were scrapped.

There was only sporadic Chinese dissidents protests in the past. Voices from university campuses were predominantly supporting the Chinese government and leadership,” he said.

liberal democracies are influenced by China. The Chinese government has a large amount of spies and informants, monitoring overseas Chinese through various United Front-linked organizations,” Teng said, referring to a party body responsible for influence and infiltration operations abroad.

Beijing has begun to exert control over Chinese student bodies in overseas countries to make sure the party line is observed even on foreign campuses, as well as to police the speech and actions of its nationals overseas.

We kept looking and were scared. I found it absurd at the time and reflected briefly upon it – what we were doing is completely legal here (in the Netherlands), but we were still afraid of being seen by other Chinese students,” said Li, the recent graduate in Rotterdam.

The concern of being betrayed by peers has been a factor in the decision of some people to study in London. She said that she was feeling lonely. “The horrible (thing) is that your friends and classmates may report you.”

She found support for others who did the same as a result of her showing solidarity for the bridge man. The day after the protest in Beijing, Jolie saw a flurry of photos on social media of protesters all over the world.

She said that she felt a strong emotion and that she didn’t know many of her friends. “I just thought – my friends, how can I contact you, how can I find you, how can we recognize each other?”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/22/china/china-party-congress-overseas-students-protest-intl-hnk/index.html

The First In-person Meeting between China’s President and His High-Power Chancellor, Xi Weizsepin Choudhury

Sometimes, all it takes is a knowing smile from a fellow Chinese student – or a new protest poster that crops up on the same notice board – to make the students feel reassured.

“(After) I first hung the posters, I went back to see if they were still there and I would see another small poster hung by someone else and I just feel really safe and comforted.”

I feel like I have to do this, they said. If they did nothing, I don’t want it to be over quickly and without consequences.

I want other people to know that there are still people like that in China. Not everyone is a nutcase. (We’re) still a nation with ideals and hopes.”

The upcoming meeting – the first in-person encounter between Biden and Xi since the US President took office – comes at a crucial time for both leaders. After cementing his power at last month’s Communist Party Congress, Xi is heading into the meeting as the strongest Chinese leader in decades.

Three years ago, the US president shook hands with China’s leader. Relations with Beijing and Washington were stable while Donald Trump was at the White House, and the COVID-19 vaccine was months away.

The U.S. and China’s role in resolving the economic tensions between the two world’s largest economies: a report from the Summit on Trade and Security

Today, trust is running low, the rhetoric is increasingly antagonistic and disputes continue to fester in areas including trade, technology, security and ideology.

There’s not going to be a statement of that sort here. The senior U.S. official told the reporters this week that the meeting was not being driven by deliverables. “The president believes it is critical to build a floor for the relationship and ensure that there are rules of the road that bound our competition.”

The two leaders have talked by phone several times since Biden took office last year, but they have been unable to reverse — or even slow — the downward slide in ties between the world’s two largest economies.

The meetings could serve to reestablish communication lines and keep disagreements to a minimum, similar to the meeting between Xi and Biden.

On Wednesday, Biden told a news conference that he wants to “lay out what each of our red lines are” when he sits down with Xi, but experts say that might not be as straightforward as it sounds.

Those who play with fire will die. The US will hopefully be clear-eyed about this, as promised by the Chinese leader, when he met Biden virtually this summer.

And in October, the Communist Party chief again reiterated that China’s preference would be for “peaceful reunification” but repeated that the use of force remains an option.

Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan: Beijing’s views on the world, and a Chinese expert warns against a unilateral unilateral unilateral warfare

Pelosi’s visit and the ensuing furor from China highlighted concerns within Biden’s administration over Beijing’s designs on Taiwan. Even before the speaker touched down in Taipei in August, Beijing had stepped up its rhetoric and aggressive actions toward the island, including sending warplanes into Taiwan’s self-declared air defense identification zone several times.

The latter has been one of the biggest flashpoints in the relationship is the self-governed island of Taiwan. Beijing has long claimed Taiwan as its own, and has said that, while it prefers to unify peacefully, it will use force, if needed. The White House insists that the US’ position has not wavered from long-held policy on Taiwan, despite a number of provocative statements made by Biden.

“I think the Biden administration will be less flexible or maneuverable” on China, says Zhu Feng, a professor of international relations at Nanjing University.

Kevin McCarthy might become majority leader and wants to visit Taiwan. A Chinese expert warns that such a move could endanger the world.

When Pelosi left the Chinese looked lost. Next time, maybe they will just take action,” says a Chinese expert on international affairs, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized by his university to speak to the media.

Xi Jinping meets Biden in the wake of the Pelosi visit to the United States and the challenges of diplomacy and cooperation

“Throughout the Cold War, there were a series of really tough export controls imposed on the Soviet Union by the U.S.,” says Chris Miller, author of the recently published Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology. To be honest, there is a lot of similarities.

Beijing considers the U.S. to have done the opposite on all counts. It has imposed the semiconductor export bans and sanctioned some of China’s leading technology firms — moves Beijing decried.

China’s restrictions could be difficult to enforce. It is easy to smuggle small electronics across borders. Other countries that are part of the Semiconductor supply chain will need to be on board for total enforcement to happen.

In the wake of the Pelosi visit, Beijing cut three channels of dialogue and suspended cooperation in five other areas, including climate change. That came on top of already sharply curtailed contact between China and the United States.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia — A highly anticipated meeting between China’s leader Xi Jinping and President Biden finished Monday with both leaders expressing an openness to restoring channels of communication and repairing a relationship that has been compared to a second Cold War.

“The problem with China is they don’t like to meet and exchange views – they just repeat talking points. Xi Jinping is not very creative in the way he interacts with his counterparts,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.

There is a window of opportunity “to take a little bit of a gamble,” he believes, now that China’s Party Congress and the U.S. midterm elections are over.

U.S. President-Mexican Security Message from Prime Minister Joe Biden: “The Status of the Interaction between the United States and the Cold War”

Nobody should expect too much from this summit. A sincere discussion may help deepen understanding between the two leaders, he says — but that’s it.

Medeiros, the former U.S. official, says the current moment is dangerous — and in some ways, similar to the 1950s and early 1960s, when mistrust grew between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and they each “tested and probed” each others’ boundaries.

The Cuban Missile Crisis gave both sides a belief that strategic restraint, often put in place through arms control agreements, was in their interests.

Biden had a variety of meetings on his final day in Phnom Penh, including a meeting with the Australian Prime Minister and critical talks with the leaders of Japan and South Korea.

The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies will meet on the sidelines of a G20 summit in Indonesia on Monday amidst fears of a global recession.

Biden’s stop at an Asian nations summit comes as advisers see a clear boost from bucking the historical and political trends in the midterm elections. The weight behind Biden’s message isn’t going to change dramatically, but it’s going to be stronger after American voters delivered a message that surpassed the hopes of White House officials.

China consummation of a new friends list with Moscow before the invasion of Ukraine caused alarm in theWest, but Beijing has yet to confirm this side of the conversation. As the leaders of the US and Russia met in Turkey on Monday, there were signs that Beijing was trying to put a lid on the nuclear issue and a diplomatic win for Washington.

A senior White house official said Thursday that Biden wants to build a floor for the relationship and prevent it from falling into open conflict. The US official says the main objectives of the sit-down are to gain a better understanding of the priorities of the two leaders and to reduce misperceptions.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan reinforced the message Saturday to reporters aboard Air Force One, noting the meeting is unlikely to result in any major breakthroughs or dramatic shifts in the relationship.

Xi and Putin in Beijing: a positive outcome on climate change and communication between the two powers of the Kremlin and the United States

Kennedy just returned from a weeks long visit to China and said each side believes they are better off than the other in the situation.

“The Chinese think they’re winning, the Americans think they’re winning, and so they’re willing to bear these costs. Kennedy said that the other side is probably not going to make any significant changes. All of those things make adjustments less likely.

The fact that the leaders are talking face- to-face is a positive development. Dialogue is important for reducing risks ofmiscommunication and miscalculations when there are deep and high suspicions.

I would want to be on the wall to see that conversation because I don’t think the US or China have been very precise with their red lines. Kennedy, of CSIS, thinks both sides have not been very clear about what rewards the other side would get if they stayed within the red lines.

Now the two leaders are sitting down in the same room – a result of weeks of intensive discussions between the two sides – Taiwan is widely expected to top their agenda. But in a sign of the contentiousness of the issue, barbs have already been traded.

By the time Xi and Putin met again in September, China had done little to support Russia militarily, and Putin admitted that Xi had “questions and concerns” about Ukraine. More recently, after the Russian President thinly threatened to use nuclear weapons, Xi rebuked him.

His assessment of climate cooperation is notrosier. “China and the US can find many common interests on this, but when it comes to how to deal with climate change specifically, it always leads to antagonism on policies and rivalry over ideology and global influence,” Shi said.

Experts in the US and China say some progress on greater communication and access between the two countries will already be considered a positive outcome – such as restoring suspended climate and military talks.

The US-South Asian Relations Summit: Meeting with President Biden and South Korea, China, and the Middle East, and a Report on Burma

President Joe Biden is on a trip to Cambodia where he is still happy with the results of the election even after two years in office.

A day after he arrived in Asia, he got another piece of news from back home that could give him a lift through the rest of his international swing – CNN and other outlets projected his party would retain control of the Senate.

The effort to translate 21 months of intensive engagement into tangible results for US alliances will put the importance of political capital on the international stage to the test.

“One thing that President Biden certainly wants to do with our closest allies is preview what he intends to do, and also ask the leaders of (South Korea) and Japan, ‘What would you like me to raise? Do you want me to go with you? Sullivan said, adding that it “will be a topic but it will not be the main event of the trilateral.”

As the leaders will be focusing on recent aggression from North Korea on Sunday, cooperation is important. According to a count by CNN, North Korea launched missiles for a total of 32 days this year. By contrast, it conducted only four tests in 2020, and eight in 2021.

Earlier Sunday, Biden attended the East Asia Summit, building on Saturday’s appearance at the ASEAN Summit aimed at boosting US-Indo-Pacific relations. The White House said Biden raised North Korea, China, and others during his meeting with Asian leaders.

Biden, the official added, will “lay out our vision for keeping up a pace of enhanced engagement and trying to also address concerns of importance to ASEAN in ways that they are looking for,” keeping with an ongoing theme during the Biden presidency of building alliances in strategic competition with China.

Among the key topics of discussion this weekend in Cambodia, the official said, is the ongoing conflict in Myanmar, where the military seized power in a coup last year.

World leaders will discuss “efforts to promote respect for human rights, rule of law and good governance, the rules-based international order, and also to address the ongoing crisis in Burma.”

The president of Egypt was the one who met with Biden when he was in Sharm El Shiekh for the climate summit.

The U.S. isn’t moving on Taiwan: President Joe Biden and the Xi-Mills “revisited”

When President Joe Biden first declared that the United States had an obligation to protect Taiwan should China move on it, his words were written off by some as a casual, if unfortunate, mischaracterization of American policy.

Do I think he’s willing to compromise on certain issues? Yes,” Biden told reporters afterward about his meeting with Xi. “We were very blunt with one another about places where we disagreed.”

Taiwan is not found on the coast of China. For more than 70 years, the two sides have been governed separately, but that hasn’t stopped China’s ruling Communist Party from claiming the island as its own – despite having never controlled it.

We all agree with what we were told a long time ago. There is a single China policy, and Taiwan makes their own decisions about independence. We are not moving – we’re not encouraging their being independent. … That’s their decision,” he said.

Joe Biden meets the U.S. ambassador Wang Yi: What he wants from Air Force One, and what he’s trying to do

Biden will be able to sit, to be straightforward and direct, and to hear President Putin tell him what he wanted, in return,” Jake Sullivan told reporters on Air Force One.

The White House hopes the leaders “come out of that meeting with a better understanding and a way to responsibly manage this relationship and the competition,” Sullivan said.

Xi has indicated he is looking to appease an otherwise-fraught relationship with the U.S. “China stands ready to find a way to get along with the United States so that we can progress in various fields,” he said in a toast at the dinner.

Wang Yi put out three demands for the U.S. to follow in order to improve relations: to respect China’s claims over, and to not interfere in the country’s development.

“I think it’s more, how can we find ways to communicate about those issues where we have deep fundamental differences of perspective or concerns, but we need to be having continued and ongoing conversation,” said a senior administration official briefing reporters before Biden met with Xi.

Thirty-seven minutes after wrapping up a late-night gala dinner with Asian leaders – punctuated by plates of wild Mekong lobster and beef saraman – an aide handed President Joe Biden the phone.

On the other end of the line was David Trone, the millionaire Maryland wine retailer who was thousands of miles and a time zone 12 hours away and had just clinched another term in the House.

A person familiar with it said that the call was brief, but indicative of the warmth and enthusiasm Biden had used many times in calls to winning candidates over the last week.

But on the other side of the world, Biden’s advisers say there has been a tangible effect tied to election results that, had they matched historical trends, threatened to undermine his standing ahead of the most consequential meeting of his first two years.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan provided a glimpse into dynamics of the moment, pointing to the fact “that many leaders took note of the results of the midterms, came up to the president to engage him and to say that they were following them closely.”

During Biden’s travels to Cambodia and Indonesia for the G20 summit, Sullivan said he found a theme about the strength of American democracy and what this election said about American democracy.

What do we really know about the United States, and what do we want to know about it? Observational reactions on the Biden-Xi G-20 summit

White House officials who were prepared for losses in the weeks leading up to election day have taken to their social media accounts to speak out against pundits and politicians who predicted otherwise.

It’s a reflection of the team that feels constantly underestimated and has long sought success after 21 months in office.

White House officials have been interested in the G-20 as a potential venue for a sit-down with China’s president. The engagement was announced publicly, but intensive preparation had been done between the two sides. The tenuous state of the relationship necessitated a sit down, regardless of domestic politics.

The White House aides downplayed the effect on Biden’s presence and message abroad due to their history of bucking trends.

Multiple people familiar with the situation, said there was an awareness that a split screen of the US president grappling with his party’s political defeat at the same time as China’s Community Party Congress taking place at the peak of his power was possible.

“Perception matters and so does political standing,” one US official said. It was never a central focus or driver of any of the dynamics but we were well aware of the fact that people were watching it around the world.

Far from a liability, however, each of the congratulatory calls back home have underscored the driving wind at the back of a president who entered the meeting with Xi at a moment where US-China relations appear to be inching away from great power competition toward inevitable conflict.

“I know I’m stronger,” Biden said, before noting that given his long-standing relationship with Xi formed during their times as their nations’ vice president that the results weren’t a necessity for the meeting to achieve its goals. US officials are careful not to overstate the effect on a trip in a region that has many layers of complexity and challenges compared to a Congressional district or swing state.

Yet Biden isn’t subtle about his sweeping view of the geopolitical stakes of a moment he’s repeatedly framed as a generational “inflection point,” centered on the battle between democracy and autocracy.

I found that they want to know if the United States is stable. We know what we are about, do we not? Is the democracy we have always been the same? Biden said at his post-election news conference as he described his conversations with world leaders.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/13/politics/midterms-joe-biden-xi-jinping-meeting/index.html

Validation in the Trump Era: The Challenge of the 2018 Trade War for Joe Biden and the China-President of the U.S.

Donald Trump, who lied during the election to win the presidency, was still the most powerful figure within the Republican Party.

Biden had been in charge of getting a large portion of the domestic agenda done on a bipartisan basis. Yet he still held an approval rating in the low 40s, weighed down by four-decade high inflation and a population exhausted by years careening from crisis to crisis.

The possibility that Biden would face the same harsh judgment of his first two years in office as nearly all his recent predecessors wasn’t just likely. It was anticipated.

Instead, as he moved through bilateral meetings and pull-asides, gala dinners and summit gatherings, Biden’s own political vindication served another purpose for his approach on the world stage: Validation.

Biden “feels that it does establish a strong position for him on the international stage and we saw that I think play out in living color today,” Sullivan told reporters after Biden departed the ASEAN-US Summit, as the Xi meeting loomed. We will see that when we travel to the G20 and his bilateral engagements in Bali.

Nevada Rep. Dina Titus, who faced a tough reelection battle in a redrawn district, had secured another term in office. Biden needed to wish him good fortune.

The trade war that President Joe Biden’s predecessor commenced with China almost three years before he took office was seen as a challenge by both sides of the Pacific.

In 2018, the Trump administration levied a series of tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese goods such as solar panels, washing machines, steel and aluminum. China responded by slapping tariffs of its own on iconic American products like Harley-Davidson and Jack Daniel’s.

The American-Chinese Trade War: Implications for the Future of Economic Cooperation in the Era of the G20 Summit, writes Yellen

Speaking with reporters in Bali, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the meeting was intended to stabilize the relationship and expressed hopes that it would lay the groundwork for bilateral economic engagement.

The stakes are high for both sides, as well as the rest of the world. China, with its nearly $18 trillion economy, has in recent years been the main driver of global growth. But Covid lockdowns and a real estate crisis have slammed the brakes on its expansion this year.

The meeting needs to happen if there is hope for the two sides to re-engaged, according to the China director of the Economist Intelligence Corporate Network.

Dexter Roberts is a senior fellow with the Asia Security Initiative and publishes a newsletter on US-China business and economic relations called Trade War.

Biden’s measures included: October’s limit on the sale of advanced chips and chip-making equipment, a ban on all goods produced in China’s Xinjiang region, blacklisting some Chinese companies, and sanctioning dozens of Chinese and Hong Kong officials over Beijing’s crackdown of the special administrative region.

As economic analysis would show, the US taxes and trade war hurt American companies’ bottom lines, leading to job cuts and higher prices, as well as a hit to household budgets.

Bekink said she did not expect any dramatic shifts in trade flows to emerge as a result of the Biden-Xi meeting. The surplus in China’s favor is still there.

He said last month he had raised concerns with his Chinese counterpart over the Biden administration’s plan to increase domestic production of chips.

The United States has called the chip shortage a “national security” issue, and in August President Biden signed into law the $200 billion CHIPS and Science Act, a five-year plan to boost domestic chip manufacturing, lower costs, and reduce dependency on the global supply chain.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/14/business/china-us-trade-issues-g20-meeting-intl-hnk/index.html

The Time of G20: When Washington and Beijing Come to a Ring in the Cosmic Arms: A Full Circle between the Kremlin and Beijing

The inflation that is the highest level since the 1980s is a result of the production pauses at auto plants.

The summit in Indonesia yielded two important outcomes according to the US, one is that Russia should not use a nuclear weapon in the Ukraine and the other is that the US will resume talks with the Chinese on climate change.

That the world’s two most powerful leaders had not been addressing these issues together in recent months shows how the entire world suffers when Washington and Beijing are as deeply estranged as they’ve been this year.

Leon Panetta, a former CIA chief, White House Chief of Staff, and defense secretary who dealt with US- China relations for decades, was cautiously optimistic after his talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

Both sides would like to avoid a clash, but their goals are incompatible as the US wants to be an Asian power as well as a global one.

“Neither side should try to remold the other in one’s own image or seek to change or even subvert the other’s system,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

The US is willing to re-engaged in climate talks at an opportune moment, as was publicly told by Biden to Xi. The White House said after the talks that the two leaders agreed to strengthen their communication and cooperation on climate change, as well as debt relief, health security and global food security.

So, Washington’s foreign policy has come full circle, since part of Richard Nixon’s motivation in engaging China during the 1970s Cold War deep freeze was to open strategic gaps between Beijing and Moscow.

Things aren’t so different now, though the dynamic between the Kremlin and Beijing has reversed, with China the global power and Russia the junior partner.

The Economic Status of the Xi Jinping-Biden Meeting – an Outlook for the High-Energy China-US Correspondence

The Secretary of State will visit China early next year to follow up on his meeting with the President of China.

“The world is big enough for the two countries to develop themselves and prosper together,” tweeted Hua Chunying, a foreign ministry spokesperson who accompanied Xi in his meeting with Biden.

Analysts say China may have been surprised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. The Beijing government has called for an end to the war.

While Biden got a stronger position at the G20 due to the Democrats controlling the Senate, he’s up for reelection in two years.

Analysts said the meeting could lay the groundwork for stronger ties between the world’s top economic powerhouses. Stock markets in mainland China and Hong Kong were buoyed as a result, with technology giants such as Alibaba

            (BABA) and Tencent

            (TCEHY) soaring on Tuesday.

Neil Thomas, senior analyst for China and Northeast Asia at Eurasia Group, said the goal of the meeting was to “build a floor” under declining relations between Beijing and Washington.

Ken Cheung, chief Asian foreign exchange strategist at Mizuho Bank, said the meeting was a positive sign that the two sides were keen to find common ground.

The Hang Seng Index – A New Look at China’s Progress in the Wake of the G20 G20: Chinese President and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng

            (HSI) Index rallied nearly 4% on Tuesday, on track to record a third straight day of gains. The index, boosted by China’s latest policy shift towards a gradual reopening of borders and a sweeping rescue package for the ailing property sector, has soared 14% since last Thursday.

Chinese technology shares, which had been hammered by a regulatory crackdown at home and rising geopolitical tension abroad, led markets higher on Tuesday. In Hong Kong, the shares of Alipay jumped up by 11%, followed by the shares of Tencent that were up 10%.

The ING analysts said that this was more progress than they or many commentators had expected and dominated what may otherwise turn out to be a fairly irrelevant G20 summit.

On Monday, after three hours of talks with US President Joe Biden, the leaders of Australia, France, the Netherlands and South Korea agreed that the rivalry between them should not lead to an open conflict.

In a sign of Xi’s busy schedule, the Chinese leader and French President Emmanuel Macron squeezed in a meeting early on Tuesday, before both leaders showed up at the opening of the G20 summit.

The talks, which lasted for 43 minutes according to the French Presidency, saw Xi reiterate his support for a ceasefire and peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.

A readout from the French Presidency said the two leaders “reaffirmed their firm position on preventing the use of nuclear weapons” in the war in Ukraine – a line that was not included in the Chinese readout.

France, like many other European countries, has taken a harder stance on China recently, viewing the country as a threat to its security and a competitor.

For the majority of the H1N1 epidemic, as well as most of the rest of the years, Xi chose to stay in China rather than travel overseas.

The meeting with Anthony Albanese, the Australian Prime Minister, is likely to be the most anticipated one by the Chinese President on Tuesday.

Announcing his meeting with Xi after arriving in Bali on Monday, Albanese said having the meeting alone is a “successful outcome,” pointing to the lack of dialogue at the top level for years.

An Australian Policy Expert on the World Affairs of the Second World Bank Central Bank Bank of the Moyal Era and the Australia-Brazil Correspondence

“It is not in Australia’s interest to not have dialogue with our major trading partners,” he told reporters, adding that there are no preconditions for the meeting.

John Lee is an Australian policy expert who is the senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington and a national security adviser to the Australian government.

“It may be a diplomatic reset of some sorts but not one in substance where both sides begin to genuinely approach each other in good faith and a preparedness to compromise,” Lee added.

Editor’s Note: Frida Ghitis, (@fridaghitis) a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. You can also view more opinions on CNN.

The contest between the two systems is far from over. And Biden was correct when he said it was critical to prove that democracy could deliver for the people.

Putin vs. Xi Jinping: After 2022, Putin Hasn’t Done Thermonuclear War

Russian forces abandoned Kherson in order to avoid a battlefield defeat that Zelensky called the beginning of the end of the war. The Western-backed Ukrainians continue their successful push against the invasion that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in February just days after meeting with Xi in Beijing.

As 2022 started, Putin and Xi Jinping still wore an aura of competence. Sure, their regimes were repressive, but their strength appeared to be matched by efficiency. If he did not have to deal with the pushback of democracy, China’s leader seemed to be handling the PAIN better than the other leaders. And prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin was punching above his weight, basking in the success of his multiple military adventures. One of his goals for a long time was to watch turmoil in the US.

World leading autocrats, like Putin and Xi, looked unstoppable. Western democracies were roiled by sometimes violent protests against Covid-19 restrictions. Putin was preparing for triumph in Ukraine. China was getting ready to solidify its control over the nation as its leader, Xi, was basking in attention.

Putin, in particular, poses a grave threat. He had painted himself into a corner. He’s not about to give up in Ukraine. One of the greatest risks in the upcoming year is the potential for Russia to escalate into a military conflict, but NATO and Vice President Biden have been careful not to do that.

Tellingly, Putin chose not to attend the G20 summit in Bali, avoiding confrontations with world leaders as he increasingly becomes a pariah on the global stage.

The rise and fall of democracy: the case of the 1922 revolution between China, the US and the world is more open than the Soviet Union

To be sure, Biden is not the only leader with a strong hand. China just had a third term for its leader, and he is now able to rule for as long as he wants. He doesn’t have to worry about elections or the press. For a long time to come he is the ruler of a mighty country.

Also crucial in the epochal competition between the two systems is showing that democracy works, defeating efforts of autocratic countries such as China and Russia to discredit it and proving that unprovoked wars of aggression, aimed at suppressing democracy and conquering territory, will not succeed.

It was an open question. People thought autocracy would prove to be better than the system at the time. How many of them think that is true today?

A better model than an open society is what most people think of Russia, China or Iran. How many people think that the US is better off with a president who is more authoritarian?

In 2022, democracy fought back with astounding determination, conviction and, yes, idealism. The autocrats went to the defensive. Even populism began to break down. Many of the positive trends are formed through great effort and involve enormous human suffering.

In order for the world to think their system was superior, the brothers wanted a message to quiet any doubts at home. For 16 consecutive years, according to the non-partisan democracy monitor Freedom House, democracy was losing ground. Authoritarian leaders and illiberal forces were on the rise; only about 20% of the world’s population lived in what it calls “Free countries”, the organization’s research showed.

The self-assured “geniuses” like Musk revealed their own flaws in the year 2022, while the world’s strongmen struggled.

Putin had a plan to conquer neighboring Ukraine and he was able to pull it off. There was no longer a vague ideal of freedom. No longer was the battle for democracy a metaphor. This was a real war with missiles, carnage and death.

The invasion strengthened NATO, a democratic defense alliance, in a way nothing had in decades. The two countries that had long cherished their neutrality wanted to join.

What will the world learn from a zero Covid regime of Xi Jinping? The case of Iran and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” group

Also a mirage was Xi Jinping’s brilliance. After nearly three years of draconian Covid-19 lockdowns, the country saw unprecedented protests demanding an end to Xi’s signature Zero Covid policy, with some even calling for regime change. Xi lifted all the restrictions without a transition or preparation.

The rules and regulations of the past three years were removed. But China had not used the time to push for increased vaccination or stock up on certain drugs. According to the reports, China’s top health officials estimated hundreds of millions of people had been exposed to the disease and various models predicted a million deaths.

In Iran, women rose up against the theocracy, fed up with its repressive rules. The regime – not coincidentally now supplying arms to Russia – responded with more violence, killing hundreds, according to human rights organizations.

The activists of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” group were not expected to continue their defiance of the regime. How far will they go? Will they be snuffed out by the regime? How will the rest of the world respond?

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/opinions/democracy-china-russia-2023-ghitis/index.html

The doppelganger of Donald Trump: Trump’s failed reelection campaign and the failure of the UK to unite behind McCarthy

Former President Donald Trump launched a new presidential campaign. It was what the British called a “damp squib,” a lead balloon. He’s becoming an increasingly isolated, rather pathetic figure after many of his top choices failed in the midterm elections and election deniers fared badly. This week, his calls for Republicans to unite behind Kevin McCarthy as the new House Speaker didn’t do much to quell the rebellion. The struggle over the speakership seemed disorganized, but democracy was on display. And of course, Trump’s legal troubles seem endless.

In Brazil, the doppelganger of Trump lost his reelection bid. Like Trump, he refused to admit defeat or attend the inauguration of the man who defeated him, President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Bolsonuar went to Florida instead.

Boris Johnson lost the leadership of the UK after an awkward relationship with Liz Truss, and the non-populist centre-right successor, Rishi Sunak, became prime minister. Back when Johnson was leading his country out of the European Union, populists across Europe wanted their own versions of Brexit. We don’t hear that anymore. French President Emmanuel Macron defeated his populist opponent, Marine Le Pen who, like other European populists, had to run from her record of closeness to Putin.

Due to diplomatic tensions with China and revelations of an expansive Chinese balloon surveillance program, on Tuesday Vice President Biden called out Beijing to millions of viewers in the US and around the world.

The president spoke as the situation was getting worse with China. The Chinese embassy in Washington said that the top official in Washington had lodged “stern representations” in demarches to senior State Department and National Security officials about how the US had attacked the balloon. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson disdainfully responded by saying, “It was clear they are scrambling to do damage control, rather than credibly address their intrusion into our airspace.”

Biden added his speech to him, in which he slammed autocracies and argued for the superiority of democracies.

The mission of the Secretary of State to Beijing and how he’s going to Russia in the next few months: The Bounds on the scope of the Chinese balloon program

The Secretary of State put off his trip to Beijing because of the balloon confrontation, but he didn’t abandon his travel completely. But there is no sign yet that conditions have stabilized to a point at which a trip, which had been meant to address the kind of tensions the balloon issue exacerbated, can take place any time soon.

Suspicions toward Beijing will not have been helped by revelations about the scope of the Chinese balloon program on Tuesday. US intelligence officials believe an extensive surveillance program run by the Chinese military is based in the province of Hainan and has conducted at least two dozen missions over at least five continents in recent years. Roughly half a dozen of those flights have been within US airspace – although not necessarily over US territory, according to one official familiar with the intelligence.

He laid out what could be seen as a Biden doctrine of standing with democracies against dictators and applying their power outside of the country of their existence, as his comments on Russia immediately proceeded those on China.