Biden-Xi Bilateral Highlights: Leaders’ First Face-to-Face Sit-Down In Over A Year

 

On Wednesday, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met for the first time in almost a year. The meetings took place in a secluded location in California between the two presidents. After the US president stepped out to greet his Chinese counterpart, they exchanged smiles and handshakes.

Noting their personal history, Biden emphasized their previous “straightforward and frank” discussions. “We haven’t always agreed, which was not a surprise to anyone, but our meetings have always been candid, straightforward and useful,” he said.

“For two large countries like China and the United States, turning our backs on each other is not an option,” Xi said in Mandarin, according to a translation. The high-level conversations took place on the fringes of this week’s APEC Summit.

“President Xi, do you trust Biden?” ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang asked Xi many times in Mandarin.” The Chinese president, who does not generally interact with the press, gave her a faint smile but did not answer.

According to a senior Biden administration official, the four-hour discussion covered themes such as fentanyl, an ultra-lethal synthetic opioid that has become widespread in areas of the United States, climate change, artificial intelligence, the Middle East, and Taiwan.

On fentanyl, Biden described it as “one of the worst drug problems the United States has ever faced,” according to the person, who said that a strategy has been drafted between the two sides to limit Chinese companies that produce “precursors” to fentanyl and to restrict access to required drugs.