Biden hosts APEC summit after signaling calmer US-China relations
SAN FRANCISCO: Promoting trade, protecting supply chains and tackling the climate crisis will be on the agenda of the APEC summit of Pacific Rim Powers which opens Thursday, November 16 in San Francisco after the President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping have helped ease regional tensions by agreeing to ease tensions.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group includes 21 members but lives in the shadow of US-China relations. So the summit opened with a sense of relief after Biden and Xi held a lengthy session Wednesday at a palatial villa outside the city, and pledged to avoid the kind of dangerous divide that could upend the ‘Mondial economy.
They agreed to restore military-to-military ties – key to avoiding dangerous communication breakdowns between superpowers – and Xi promised to crack down on China’s production of the ingredients needed for the highly addictive fentanyl flood in the United States.
However, the two sides remain further apart than ever on the issue of Taiwan, a U.S.-backed democratic island that Beijing says is a sovereign part of China and should return to its full control.
Biden, for his part, said that despite his close relationship with Xi, he still considers the communist leader a “dictator” – a remark that has drawn criticism from the Chinese government.
With the start of the main summit in San Francisco, attention has broadened to the extremely dynamic area stretching from the coasts of Canada to Chile to Australia, China and Russia.
“We have a busy few days ahead of us. The challenges we face today are different than those faced by previous groups of APEC leaders,” Biden said after his meeting with Xi, mentioning intelligence artificial climate, climate resilience, supply chains and the role of APEC. diplomacy.
