United States President Joe Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday and voiced America’s concerns with Beijing’s aggressive economic policies, human rights abuses at home and coercive actions in the Indo-Pacific. This was the first conversation between the two leaders since Biden took oath last month.
In a press release, the White House said that Biden “underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan”.
Biden affirmed his priorities of protecting the American people’s security and preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific, the White House said.
The leaders also exchanged views on countering the coronavirus pandemic, and the shared challenges of global health security, climate change and preventing weapons proliferation.
Biden also expressed hopes to cooperate with China on policy priorities. “I told him I will work with China when it benefits the American people,” Biden said on Twitter after the call.
This was the first call between Xi and a US president since the Chinese leader spoke with former President Donald Trump in March last year. Since then, relations between the two countries have plummeted to a multi-decade low.
The Trump administration had blamed China for various things, including aggression in South East Asia, the spread of the coronavirus and targeting of the Uighurs Muslims.
An unidentified official from Biden’s administration told Reuters that the call came at a time when the United States believed it was in a position of strength, after consultations with allies and partners, to lay out core concerns about China’s “aggressive activities and abuses”.
The official said that ahead of the call, Biden decided he will be “practical, hard-headed, clear-eyed” in dealings with Xi, but wanted to ensure the two of them had the opportunity to have an open line of communication.
In his first diplomatic address as president on February 5, Biden had called Beijing Washington’s “most serious competitor”, as he signalled an aggressive approach towards the country. “We’ll confront China’s economic abuses, counter its aggressive, coercive action to push back on China’s attack on human rights, intellectual property and global governance,” Biden had said. “But we’re ready to work with Beijing when it’s in America’s interest to do so.”
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