US President Joe Biden on Thursday disclosed that his first phone call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping lasted a marathon two hours, during which he challenged Xi on human rights, trade, and regional muscle-flexing.
But an increasingly assertive Xi pushed back, according to Chinese state media, telling Biden that issues such as Beijing’s crushing of opposition in Hong Kong and saber-rattling on Taiwan are China’s ‘internal affairs.‘
‘Last night, I was on the phone for two straight hours with Xi Jinping,’ Biden told reporters — an unusually long interaction for a US president, with whom even face-to-face meetings rarely stretch beyond an hour.
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Biden warned afterward that if the United States doesn’t ‘get moving’ on China’s policy, ‘they’re going to eat our lunch.’
Wednesday’s call — the first between the two since Biden took office in January — was to set the stage for the relationship under the new US leader after it frayed under former president Donald Trump.
Beijing has tested US patience since Xi came to power, and Trump targeted it with trade tariffs.
Biden is under pressure at home and abroad to maintain Trump’s stance, as the West looks to hold China to account for human rights abuses and at a time when some in the United States and wider world blame Beijing for failing to contain the coronavirus pandemic, which was first discovered in the central city of Wuhan.
The president ‘underscored his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unfair economic practices, the crackdown in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and increasingly assertive actions in the region, including toward Taiwan,’ the White House said after the call.
Chinese state media, reporting the call, said Xi had emphasized the issues were ‘China’s internal affairs and are related to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.’
‘The United States should respect China’s core interests and act cautiously,‘ it added.
– South China Sea tensions –
Biden told Xi his priorities were to protect the American people’s security, prosperity, health, and way of life, and to preserve ‘a free and open Indo-Pacific.’
Washington and its Asian allies have bristled at China’s expansion in the South China Sea, a huge and economically vital waterway where Beijing has built militarized islands, despite multiple overlapping claims from neighboring states.
The US has repeatedly sailed warships through the area to press the point that the sea is globally recognized as international waters.
The two leaders also spoke about the Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and weapons proliferation, the White House said.
Chinese state media reported Xi had talked about how ‘it is necessary to distinguish between areas where there are differences and areas that offer opportunities for meaningful cooperation, and jointly promote cooperation while managing differences.’
It was not Biden’s first interaction with Xi; the two met when Biden was a vice president in the 2009-2017 administration of Barack Obama.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
