WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday night for the first time since taking office, the White House said.
The White House said in a statement that Biden expressed “fundamental concern” about Beijing’s “coercive and unjust economic practices, the repression in Hong Kong, the violation of human rights in Xinjiang and increasingly assertive action in the region, including against Taiwan”.
The statement said leaders had also discussed countering the Covid-19 pandemic and “preventing the shared challenges of global health protection, climate change and the proliferation of weapons”.
Officials said Biden also intends to express his hope that the two leaders can work together on issues such as the distribution of nuclear power and climate change.
Biden had previously not planned to lift tariffs on China imposed by the Trump administration, senior administration officials said before the call, and he is unlikely to reduce the U.S. military presence in Asia, as the former President Donald Trump has threatened to do so. .
Officials said the call between the leaders of the two largest economies in the world, which comes three weeks after Biden’s inauguration, follows a review of the key elements of US policy towards China during the Trump administration and extensive consultation with the American allies. One of them described Biden as a ‘strong position’ to have a substantive conversation with Xi.
Officials said the call was aimed at identifying a new U.S. strategy that maintains a core tenet of the Trump administration’s policy – intense competition – but follows a dramatically different approach.
“We have looked at what the Trump administration has done over four years and have found merit in the basic proposal of intense strategic competition with China and the need for us to make a strong, systematic participation in it. instruments of our government and every instrument of our power, ”said a senior administration official. “But we had deep problems with the way the Trump administration conducted that competition.”
Officials said a difference in Biden’s approach would focus on dealing with US allies, both in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region. For example, Biden is expected to attend international forums for countries in the region, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, and the summit in East Asia, although it is unclear whether his appearance would be virtual as a result. of the pandemic. Former President Barack Obama, for example, regularly attended the ASEAN summit, but Trump skipped it after his first year in office.
A second senior administration official said America’s partners in Asia had expressed concern about recent US action, including the Trump administration’s unpredictability and the ‘foreign interaction with North Korea’.
Officials were also adamant that Biden’s China policy was not a continuation of Trump’s and said that he did not criticize the toughness of Trump’s approach, but rather ‘that he did it alone while also us Allies and partners fought. ‘
The review of policy towards China continues in several areas, including an effort announced by the Department of Defense on Wednesday, and a study of the Trump administration’s tariffs.
Biden will decide on tariffs after extensive consultation with agencies in his administration and with US partners in Asia and Europe – which, according to a senior administration official, will take some time. ‘
“Trade policy towards China will change,” the official said. “And in the meantime, we are not lifting the tariffs.”
Among the policies the government plans to pursue is to further restrict China’s access to certain types of sensitive technology. Officials said new restrictions on such exports would be coordinated with U.S. allies.
Officials said Biden did not plan to discuss Beijing’s host of the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Biden first got to know Xi as vice president at a time when it was clear that Xi would run for the presidency. A senior administration official said Biden was “practical, stubborn and clear-eyed” after the call.
“He has apparently spent a lot of time with Xi Jinping over the years,” said one of the senior officials. “The two leaders know each other very well.”
The strategy Biden plans to adopt, the official says, “will not play out over the course of days or weeks or even months. It will play out over the course of years.”
“That does not mean there is no urgency,” the official said. “There is urgency, and we are acting urgently. But it also means that we have to stick to it, and that we have to play the long game.”
