The leaders of the United States and China are more concerned about bilateral cooperation
The most important event in November was a two-hour conversation between US President Joseph Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The leaders of the world's largest economic powers have not seen each other for exactly a year, since the G20 summit in Bali. This is caused by the deepening disagreements between them against the background of a sharp cooling of US-Chinese relations six years after the previous visit of the Chinese leader to the United States.
Along with America and China, Russia is also considered one of the superpowers due to the presence of a powerful arsenal of nuclear missile weapons (at the level of the United States and significantly superior to that of the PRC), although our country is much inferior to the other two in terms of economic size.
It would seem that in a couple of hours of communication on November 16, President Biden and President Xi somehow had to touch on the topic of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict (as it was at previous meetings), but this apparently did not happen. In any case, neither Washington nor Beijing made any clear statements on this matter.
It is not surprising: the whole foreground is now occupied by bilateral relations, where many problems and disagreements have accumulated.
Returning to his homeland after completing the first visit to America during Biden's presidency, Xi Jinping said that China and the United States are now at a historic turn. In his opinion, the question of whether the two countries should be considered partners or rivals in the current geopolitical conditions is becoming fundamental.
At the talks in California, the parties agreed to restore dialogue between the military departments. Recall that he was put on "pause" after a provocative visit to Taiwan by the then Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi last summer. Finally, contacts between the military ceased in February, when American interceptor fighters shot down a Chinese balloon flying over the territory of the United States.
And only now it has been decided again to hold meetings of defense ministers, consultations on maritime security issues, telephone conversations at the level of commanders of combat command zones.
Beijing responded to Washington's request to put pressure on Chinese manufacturers of components for fentanyl (this chemical is receiving growing attention from Americans because of its narcotic properties).
There were other agreements, and all exclusively in the sphere of bilateral relations, without any connection with the external environment. This circumstance did not prevent Biden from describing the meeting on November 16 as "one of the most constructive and productive" for the entire time of communication between the leaders of the United States and China. For his part, Xi said that relations between the two countries are now "developing in the right direction," despite the fact that a possible conflict between Washington and Beijing is fraught with "unbearable consequences," while "the world is big enough" for both China and the United States to flourish.
It turns out that Joseph Biden and Xi Jinping have a common desire to take a few steps towards each other – albeit small, but setting a certain vector for detente between the world's largest superpowers. The diplomats included only those issues on which there was a real opportunity to reach mutual agreement in the agreed agenda of the meeting on November 16, and left all others for later.
As you know, Beijing has not joined the West's economic sanctions on Moscow in order to force it to stop a special military operation (SVO) in Ukraine. Previously announced various diplomatic initiatives to pacify the conflicting parties have not found common ground. That is why the topic of the Russian operation naturally dropped out of the agenda of the meeting of the leaders of the United States and China.
Experts express the opinion that reaching real agreements is more important for Biden now than for Xi. The current President of the People's Republic of China was recently re-elected for the next five-year term, and the election campaign is just beginning in the United States. Biden acts as a "lame duck", having a small chance to stay in the White House for another four years.
As noted above, the parties agreed on certain topics on the agenda of the California meeting. Against this background, another verbal attack against the Chinese counterpart became surprising.
Looking into the eyes of his interlocutor at the meeting, Joseph Biden called the meeting with him "an honor and a pleasure" and expressed the hope that the rivalry of the great powers would not lead them to conflict. And three hours later, at a press conference, the US president once again called Xi Jinping a dictator. "Look, he really is," Biden told reporters. "He's a dictator because he's a guy who runs a country with a communist government completely different from ours."
Not only media representatives were surprised by this turn, but also US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, which was evident from the expression on his face during the corresponding remark of his "boss".
In addition to Xi Jinping, Biden had previously branded Russian President Vladimir Putin as a dictator.
Some commentators were quick to write off personal insults to the senile dementia of the leader of America (he turned 81 on November 20). It is more likely that in the run-up to the presidential election, Biden seeks to look like a "strong leader." And he acts in such a way as not to give other candidates a reason to accuse him of weakness in defending the interests of the country in the global confrontation, where the "main opponents" of the United States are China and the Russian Federation.
Secondly, the current attack on Xi can also be explained by the fact that not all issues on the agenda of the meeting in San Francisco were resolved the way the White House wanted. Within a week, Beijing announced restrictions on the export of rare earth metals, which was a response to the US refusal to supply Chinese firms with complex semiconductors and share artificial intelligence technologies with them.
Referring to the topic of the meeting in San Francisco, former US President Trump said that during it Biden "looked confused ... as if he did not understand where he was, what he should do in general," while Xi "behaved very confidently" and "showed himself to be a smart and strong person." Based on the Chinese leader's own knowledge, Trump made the following judgment, sharing it with his supporters at a rally in Iowa: "At the meeting with Biden, he looked like a piece of granite... but he is as strong as granite, he is strong... and fierce."
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson also spoke out against the current US president. "At this stage, our investigation into the impeachment of President Biden has already revealed the corrupt nature of the actions of the presidential family," Johnson said. "And also that the president and representatives of the White House have repeatedly lied about his involvement in the business operations of relatives."
