U.S. President Joe Biden (L) participates in a virtual meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Roosevelt Room of the White House.
Getty ImagesPresident Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday held their first “virtual meeting” since the U.S. leader took office, with few details released of their three-hour talk but signs that cordial but occasionally strongly worded statements were issued.
While the two sides strove to make the remote summit as realistic as possible to a face-to-face meeting, their settings perfectly displayed contrasting cultural and negotiating styles.
Biden sat in the cloistered Roosevelt Room, with chairs stacked in the corner, at the head of a wooden table that occupies most of the room. Besides Secretary of State Antony Blinken and—in a sign of the economic importance of the meeting—Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, others at the table were Biden’s top China experts: national security adviser Jake Sullivan, “Asia czar” Kurt Campbell, and senior director for China Laura Rosenberger.
A modest, flat-panel television that would be at home in a middle-class household displayed Xi’s team to the Roosevelt Room.
Meanwhile, the Chinese team sat at a decorated table in the cavernous, palace-like Great Hall of the People in Beijing, with a Jumbotron-like screen displaying the U.S. side.
Despite the gaping difference in style, the opening remarks were cordial from both sides, with Biden at ease in his informal style and the two reminiscing on their decadeslong friendship.
Xi stressed agreement with Biden on climate change, and said the two sides must “increase communication and cooperation.”
Statements later released by both sides were also restrained but with the U.S. side reiterating concerns over human rights and China’s “unfair trade and economic practices.”
Xi’s sharpest remarks were his threat that, “If Taiwan independence separatist forces provoke or even break through the red line, we will have no alternative but to take drastic measures,” according to a statement released by the official Xinhua News Agency.
The meeting comes at a sensitive time in the bilateral relationship. On the one hand, it is an opportunity to restore some degree of normalcy to ties that reached historic levels of tension under President Donald Trump. On the other hand, China’s assertiveness on political, military, and economic issues have only continued to grow—leaving Biden little room for conciliation.
The leaders stressed areas of cooperation—particularly increased communication to smooth the relationship but also to avoid potentially catastrophic miscalculations as the two sides increase military activities around Taiwan and the South China Sea. And both reiterated the need for the world’s two biggest polluters to tackle climate change, just days after their surprise joint declaration at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
While trade was scarcely mentioned in the readouts, with economic officials present at both the U.S. and Chinese tables, such issues no doubt came up during the discussions, said Victor Shih, the Ho Miu Lam Chair in China and Pacific Relations at the University of California, San Diego.
“I think the biggest objective of the Chinese government during the meeting will be some relief on U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, which has led to some degree of offshoring of Chinese production. The U.S. likely will provide some information on the conditions under which U.S. tariffs will be reduced,” he told Barron’s.
“Although we don’t know the tone of the dialogue yet, in general, I think these bilateral meetings force officials on both sides to think about each other as a strategic priority, which is an improvement upon the period of diplomatic disengagement seen in the late Trump years,” he said.
On Friday, more than 20 U.S. business groups sent a letter to U.S. trade officials, urging the relaxation of Trump-era trade restrictions on China.
As the talks approached—Monday night in the U.S. and Tuesday morning in Beijing—the media coverage was strikingly different. Nearly all U.S. news outlets either streamed the remarks or had analysts discussing the issues. CNN’s dominant headline read: “Biden in critical talks with Xi amid fierce tensions.”
In China, leading news broadcaster CCTV streamed images of the U.S. sending military aid to Ukraine. State-run press agency Xinhua did have the meeting as its main story, but with the more conciliatory headline: “Xi Jinping: China and the United States should respect each other, coexist peacefully, and cooperate for a win-win situation.”
Despite the terse readouts of the lengthy meeting, it was apparent the two sides were eager to ease tensions, yet clearly with hurdles that may be hard to overcome.
And the contrasting meeting styles—which might seem unremarkable to some but are of paramount import in Chinese etiquette—showed that the world’s two leading superpowers are bringing their ideas to each other with very different cultural styles, yet in a relationship that is likely to shape the 21st century.
Write to editors@barrons.com
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