Xi says China is ready to work with the United States

China is ready to manage its differences with the United States, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday, ahead of a planned virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden.

The meeting, which was the first since Biden became president earlier this year, will be held next week, a source linked to the meeting’s planning said. CNN International.

However, specific details and the exact date have not yet been defined. News of the arrangement of the meeting was reported for the first time by the TV network Bloomberg.

The statement comes as Xi hints at a slight heating up in relations with the United States, according to a letter posted on the website of the Chinese embassy in the United States on Tuesday (9).

In the document, Xi said that China is willing to “increase exchange and cooperation in all sectors” with the US and restore relations between the two world powers.

The letter was read by the Chinese ambassador at a National Committee on China-US Relations dinner in Washington.

US officials revealed last month that they had reached an agreement in principle with China to hold a virtual meeting between Biden and Xi before the end of the year, as part of an effort to ensure stability in one of the most important and tense relations in the world. .

This tentative agreement was the result of a six-hour meeting between Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Switzerland, just days after Beijing sent a record number of warplanes to Taiwan’s defense zone.

University of California elite Chinese policy expert Victor Shih said the meeting was a positive development for bilateral relations.

“I believe next week’s bilateral meeting is a preliminary sign that the US-China relationship is returning to a more normal path — than what happened in Trump’s last years,” Shih told CNN.

The meeting should also motivate officials, especially on the Chinese side — from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ministry of Commerce — to once again focus their energies on the US-China relationship and think of ways to improve it, Shih added.

Meeting between leadersv

The last time Biden and Xi spoke was in September, in a phone call that lasted about 90 minutes.

“The two leaders had a broad, strategic discussion, and discussed areas where our interests converge and areas where our interests, values ​​and perspectives diverge,” said a reading of the summons released by the White House.

“They agreed to engage in both sets of issues openly and directly. This discussion, as President Biden made clear, was part of the continuing US effort to responsibly manage the competition between the US and the People’s Republic of China.”

A senior administration official described the tone of the call as “respectful” and “familiar and frank”.

The two leaders also spoke for two hours in February — their first phone call since Biden took office.

“It was a good conversation, I know him well, we spent a lot of time together over the years I was vice president. But, you know, if we don’t move, they’ll have lunch,” Biden said at the time, highlighting China’s efforts to invest in rail and other transportation.

Absence of Xi

Xi has not left China in 21 months, following steps to tighten the country’s borders in response to the pandemic. He missed the G20 summit in late October, as well as the COP26 climate conference in Scotland this month.

Last week, Biden criticized Xi for not attending COP26, saying he had made a ‘great mistake’.

Xi’s absence from the global stage was noted among world leaders and, in addition to wanting to focus on internal problems such as the elimination of Covid-19, it signals a possible retreat in global cooperation. China’s relations with the US and other Western nations are at their lowest level in decades — a point Biden has not missed.

“The fact that China, trying to assert, understandably, a new role in the world as a world leader – not showing up? Come on,” Biden said in Glasgow.

(*This text has been translated. Click here to read the original in English)