Name: Biden: China and US military to resume ‘open, clear communications on a direct basis’ – as it happened
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Biden: China and US military to resume ‘open, clear communications on a direct basis’ – as it happened

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Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to key eventsSkip to navigationThis blog is now closed. Read our full story at the link below:From 3d agoDuring his San Francisco press conference, the US president said military-to-military contacts will resume between the two countries.Biden said:That’s how accidents happen. Misunderstandings. So we’re back to direct, open, clear communications on a direct basis.This blog is now closed. Here is our full article on today’s meeting between Biden and Xi:Joe Biden has claimed that his summit meeting with Xi Jinping has brought substantial progress, including agreements on limiting narcotics trafficking, restoring militaries lines of communication, and to start talking about the global risks posed by artificial intelligence.However, it was clear that after more than four hours of talks in a mansion outside San Francisco, the meeting had not brought the US and China any closer on the fate of Taiwan, which Xi reportedly told Biden was “the biggest, most potentially dangerous issue in US-China relations”.Furthermore, Biden himself risked undoing some of the bridge-building at the summit, the first between the two leaders for a year, with an off-the-cuff response to a reporter’s question at the tail-end of a press conference, in which he confirmed he still looked on Xi as a dictator.“Look, he is,” the president said. “He’s a dictator in the sense that he’s a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours.”This blog is closing shortly. Here is a summary of of the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping:Joe Biden has presented an unapologetic defence of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, arguing that Hamas presented a continuing threat to Israel and that Israeli forces were seeking to avoid civilian casualties.After a summit meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Apec summit in San Francisco, Biden told reporters on Wednesday night: “Hamas has already said publicly that they plan on attacking Israel again like they did before, cutting babies’ heads off, burning women and children alive. So the idea that they’re going to just stop and not do anything is not realistic.”Reports that Hamas beheaded babies in the 7 October attack on Israeli civilians remain unconfirmed, though the brutality of the massacre in which about 1,200 people were killed is not in doubt. The Israeli military made the claim in the first few days after 7 October, but the claims have not been independently verified.Here is our video report on the meeting between Biden and Xi:Bilateral meetings aren’t always conducive to a personal touch, and Biden and Xi were flanked by advisers on opposite sides of a long table. However, a senior administration official said they spoke about their wives, and Biden wished Xi’s wife a happy birthday.The official, who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation, said Xi was embarrassed, and he admitted that he had forgotten his wife’s upcoming birthday because he’s been working so hard.Biden and Xi go back years, and Biden often repeats the story of their meetings when they were both vice presidents, the Associated Press reports.But on Wednesday, it was Xi’s turn to reference their previous encounters during brief public remarks, although he eschewed the embellishments that Biden usually adds to the tale.“It was 12 years ago,” Xi said. “I still remember our interactions very vividly, and it always gives me a lot of thoughts.”Biden also emphasised the length of their relationship and the value of their interactions.“We haven’t always agreed, which was not a surprise to anyone, but our meetings have always been candid, straightforward and useful,” Biden said. He added that “it’s paramount that you and I understand eachother clearly, leader to leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication.”Xi arrived in San Francisco at a time of economic challenges back in China, where an ageing population and growing debt have hampered its recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.According to Beijing’s description of the meeting, Xi pressed Biden to lift sanctions and change policies on export controls for sensitive equipment.“Stifling China’s technological progress is nothing but a move to contain China’s high-quality development and deprive the Chinese people of their right to development,” the readout said.“China’s development and growth, driven by its own inherent logic, will not be stopped by external forces.”There’s no indication that Biden will agree to take such steps. But even the meeting itself could calm jittery nerves back in China, where there have been signs foreign investment is tapering off.Zhang Lei, a Chinese businessman whose company, Cheche Group, is listed on Nasdaq, said high-level meetings such as the one between Biden and Xi can help assure companies that have been hesitant to invest in China.“Confrontations don’t work,” he said. “You don’t make money with confrontations.”Beijing has long sought to be treated as an equal by Washington, and Biden sought to leverage those ambitions with Xi to address two devastating wars.In their private session, Biden appealed to Xi to use his influence to try to calm global tensions, particularly to try to pressure Iran not to widen the conflict between Israel and Hamas.A US official said Biden did most of the talking on the matter, and that Xi mostly listened, and that it was too soon to tell what sort of message China was sending to Tehran and how it was being received.Biden has also pressed Xi to continue to withhold military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.AP: Xi agreed to help curb the production of the illicit fentanyl that is a deadly component of drugs sold in the United States. A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting, said the shift will be a setback for Latin American drug dealers.“It’s going to save lives, and I appreciated President Xi’s commitment on this issue,” Biden said at a press conference after his meeting.Beijing state media said after the meeting that the two leaders “agreed Wednesday to resume on the basis of equality and respect high-level military-to-military communication”.When asked by a reporter whether or not he trusted Xi in the contest of their joint efforts to reduce the flow fentanyl, Biden said, “I know the man, I know his modus operandi…he’s been straight.”Biden and Xi held a “clear-headed” and “not heated” discussion on Taiwan, the most sensitive topic in the relationship, with the greatest potential to spiral into wider conflict. Biden said he reaffirmed the United States’ “One China” policy and its belief that any resolution must be peaceful.“I’m not going to change that,” Biden said. “That’s not going to change.”Biden said in the press conference after the meeting that he and Xi talked about Taiwan’s election and Biden “expects no interference” from China’s government.He reiterated, though, that the US would continue to arm Taiwan as a deterrent against any attempt by China to use force to reunify the self-governing island with the mainland. The US had maintained strategic ambiguity about whether it would directly intervene to protect Taiwan in the event of an invasion by Beijing.Xi, a US official said, told Biden he had no plans to invade the island, though Biden chided him for China’s massive military build-up around Taiwan. Biden also called on China to avoid meddling in Taiwan’s elections next year.Xi warned US President Joe Biden at a summit to stop arming Taiwan, according to a readout from China’s foreign ministry.“The US side should... stop arming Taiwan, and support China’s peaceful reunification,” Xi told Biden.“China will realise reunification, and this is unstoppable,” the Chinese leader said of the future of the self-ruled island, which Beijing has pledged to re-take one day.In an interview with the Associated Press, Zoe Liu, a fellow for China studies at the Council for Foreign Relations, has described the meeting between Biden and Xi as a positive step, albeit an incremental one.“These agreements will not change the structural challenges in the bilateral relations, but it paves the way for more detailed working-level discussions, which is more important,” she said.Let’s take another look at the key takeaways from today’s meeting between Biden and Xi.First up, resuming military-to-military communications.China severed military contact after then-House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022.On Wednesday, the two leaders reached an agreement to resume military-to-military communications. That means Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will speak with his Chinese counterpart once someone is named to the job, the official said. Similar engagements will take place up and down the military chain of command.The official said Biden was “very clear” to Xi that such communications between US and China should be institutionalised and that they are “not done as a gift or as a favor to either side.”This is Helen Sullivan taking the Guardian’s live coverage.You can see the White House video of the press conference held by Joe Biden below:A selection of images from the dayHere’s a summary of Biden’s first meeting with Xi Jinping since the pair were in Bali last year, and Biden’s subsequent remarks on the meeting.Thank you for following the Guardian’s live blog. My colleagues in Australia will be picking things up from here.In addition to fielding questions about his meeting with Xi Jinping and the US’s relationship with China, Joe Biden was pressed by reporters about the Israel-Hamas war.When asked whether or not he has set a deadline for his support of Israel’s military actions, and whether he’s comfortable with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military actions, he answered “yes” to the first part of the question and “no” to the second.In regard to the release of hostages, Biden said he is “working to move forward on hostage negotiations”. He said he didn’t want to “get ahead” of himself by sharing specific details on progress, and clarified that he has no plans to send in the US military to remove hostages.Biden added that he doesn’t expect to see an end to the war until “Hamas no longer has the capacity to murder, abuse and do horrific things to the Israelis”.“I don’t know how long it’s gonna last but it won’t end until there’s a two-state solution,” he added.Reuse this content

Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to key eventsSkip to navigationThis blog is now closed. Read our full story at the link below:From 3d agoDuring his San Francisco press conference, the US president said military-to-military contacts will resume between the two countries.Biden said:That’s how accidents happen. Misunderstandings. So we’re back to direct, open, clear communications on a direct basis.This blog is now closed. Here is our full article on today’s meeting between Biden and Xi:Joe Biden has claimed that his summit meeting with Xi Jinping has brought substantial progress,...

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Helen Sullivan

TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and Guardian Unlimited, is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers The Guardian and The Observer, as well as a substantial body of web-only work produced by its own staff, including a rolling news service.

Biden: China and US military to resume ‘open, clear communications on a direct basis’ – as it happened

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