Will Joe Biden meet Xi Jinping? China awaits clues to future of US relations

Name: As Biden enters White House, world leaders express ‘relief’ and welcome ‘friend’ and ‘mate’ back
Uploaded: 2021-01-21T14:30:11.000Z
Duration: 4 min 33 s
Description: As Biden enters White House, world leaders express ‘relief’ and welcome ‘friend’ and ‘mate’ back

As new US president begins to phone allies, his domestic and global priorities will help shape how he deals with Beijing

Observers believe the Chinese president will be the keener of the leaders to make early contact

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Joe Biden has met Chinese President Xi Jinping before, including in Beijing in 2011 when Biden was US vice-president. Photo: AP

Sarah Zheng

Published: 10:30pm, 21 Jan 2021Updated: 11:34am, 18 Feb 2021

As US President Joe Biden takes the helm, he will need to reckon with a very different China than the country he dealt with as vice-president more than four years ago.

The new White House has signalled that Biden’s initial telephone calls to world leaders will be first to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, then to other US partners and allies to “rebuild those relationships and to address the challenges and threats we’re facing”, as White House press secretary Jen Psaki put it on Wednesday.

Given that “threats” perceived during the Donald Trump administration had included China’s ruling Communist Party, it raises the question of whether early talks between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are feasible and could help fix a relationship at a 40-year low on nearly all fronts.

Beijing has called for communication to resume between the major powers after four years of a norm-busting, hawkish approach from the Trump administration, which in its final few months in particular needled China on issues such as Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea.

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As Biden enters White House, world leaders express ‘relief’ and welcome ‘friend’ and ‘mate’ back

Opportunities for Biden and Xi to meet this year could include the Group of 20 summit in late October in Rome. The pair’s last sit-down was in September 2015 when Xi visited Washington during Barack Obama’s presidency.