Biden, Xi forge agreements on military cooperation and Fentanyl
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More news: Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have agreed to resume military-to-military communications and cooperate on anti-drug policies, during their first face-to-face talks in a year.
Beijing said the two leaders agreed to resume military contacts that China severed after then-House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022. Biden requested that both countries institutionalise the military-to-military dialogues, and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will meet his Chinese counterpart when that person is named, a senior US official said. The US and China militaries have had a number of near-misses and acrimonious exchanges over the past year.
Biden and Xi also agreed to cooperate on addressing the source of the opioid fentanyl, a leading cause of drug overdoses in the United States. The outcomes emerged from a meeting in San Francisco aimed at easing strained relations between the superpowers.
Biden, Xi meet for talks over military, drugs, AI
The news: US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping have met for the first time in a year for talks in a bid to reduce friction between the countries, amid disputes over military conflicts, drug trafficking and economic issues.
The context: Officials on both sides of the Pacific have set expectations low as Biden and Xi are set to discuss Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Israel-Hamas war, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, North Korea and human rights — areas where the leaders have been unable to resolve long-standing disagreements. In opening remarks, Biden said the US and China had to ensure that competition between them "does not veer into conflict" and manage their relationship "responsibly". Xi called the US-China relationship "the most important bilateral relationship in the world," and said he and Biden "shoulder heavy responsibilities for the two peoples, for the world, and for history." The meeting took place in San Francisco ahead of the APEC summit.
The source: Reuters
