Editorial | Window opens to revive ties between China and the US
- It is still to be confirmed, but all signs point to a meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden at the Apec summit in San Francisco next month
It says something about the state of China-United States relations that less than three weeks ahead of the Apec leaders meeting in San Francisco, it remains unconfirmed that President Xi Jinping will attend.
The question has been a hot topic. Therein lies the answer to a bigger question – whether Xi and US President Joe Biden will meet face to face on the Apec sidelines for the first time since the G20 leaders meeting a year ago.
Thankfully, and to the relief of diplomatic capitals increasingly concerned about the disengagement of the world’s two biggest economies, positive signs gathered pace this week that Xi will be there and that the world can expect a summit.
First the joint China-US economic working group, launched last month along with a financial working group as a channel for bilateral discussions, had a virtual meeting described by China’s Ministry of Finance as an “in-depth, candid and constructive communication”.
This revived an economic dialogue downgraded and then discontinued by former US president Donald Trump. It included discussion of global macroeconomic situations and cooperation in responding to global challenges.
Perhaps most importantly, given the importance of dialogue in managing differences between rival systems, both parties agreed to keep talking at a high level. That has to be encouraging, given it followed an extension of US chip export bans that could affect Beijing’s artificial intelligence drive.