Chinese President Xi Jinping wishes Joe Biden a speedy recovery from Covid-19

The US president tested positive on Thursday and experienced what the White House said were mild symptoms
Xi’s get-well-soon message comes ahead of expected talks between the US and Chinese leaders in the coming days

US-China relations

Teddy Ng

Published: 3:02pm, 22 Jul 2022

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Chinese President Xi Jinping has expressed his hopes that his US counterpart Joe Biden recovers quickly from Covid-19.

In a written message to Biden on Friday, Xi said he was sending his sincere best wishes. “I wish you a speedy recovery,” Xi said, according to state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The White House said on Thursday that Biden had tested positive for Covid-19 and was experiencing “very mild symptoms”.

The National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby, said on Friday that Biden had received Xi’s message through the Chinese embassy.

Biden began isolating at the White House and would “continue to carry out all of his duties fully during that time”, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

He has also begun taking Paxlovid, an antiviral drug developed by Pfizer, Jean-Pierre said.

In a tweet on Thursday, Biden said he was “doing great”.

“I’m doing well, getting a lot of work done … Keep the faith, it’s going to be OK.”

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White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha told reporters that Biden’s oxygen levels were being monitored “very regularly” and appeared “normal” on Thursday morning.

Earlier, Biden said he and Xi would talk within the next week and a half.

But the Chinese Foreign Ministry declined to say when the talk would happen, saying only that the two leaders maintain various forms of communication. Kirby said on Friday that there was no update on when the call would take place, but added that topics involving global economics and international security would be covered.

The talks, arranged after a meeting between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this month, would aim to calm down increasing tensions between China and the US.

But reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning a trip to Taiwan next month risks upending that goal. If Pelosi’s trip goes ahead, she would be the most senior US official to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich, a previous House speaker, in the 1990s.

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US President Joe Biden tests positive for Covid-19

Beijing is expected to react strongly, including a display of military strength, if she visits the island, which it regards as a breakaway province.

Pelosi raised the possibility of a military escalation from China on Thursday after Biden said the Pentagon did not support the visit. She said: “Maybe the military was afraid our plane would get shot down or something like that by the Chinese.”

Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, was infected with Covid-19 in October 2020. Xi also sent his best wishes to Trump and his wife, Melania, who also tested positive, at that time.

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Trump, then 74, was hospitalised and underwent aggressive treatment at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre in a suburb of Washington. His low oxygen levels alarmed his medical team.

Dr Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, wrote on Twitter: “Biden isn’t remotely in the same risk category as Trump was. He’s had four doses of vaccine, Paxlovid, and possibly a variant which tends to cause less severe disease. He also doesn’t have obesity.”

Additional reporting by Reuters and Agence France-Presse