Xi-Harris meeting: Washington insists on dialogue
The American vice-president and the Chinese leader exchanged briefly on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific summit (Apec) which is currently taking place in Thailand.
US Vice President Kamala Harris at the APEC summit.
AFP
The United States and rival superpower China stressed the importance of dialogue on Saturday after a brief meeting in Bangkok between US Vice President Kamala Harris and Chinese President Xi Jinping, who kept the tone of his meeting conciliatory. with his American counterpart Joe Biden.
The two leaders spoke before a session of the Asia-Pacific Summit (Apec), a US official said. Their exchange follows the dynamics of communication initiated by MM. Biden and Xi who tried to ease tensions during their three-hour meeting Monday in Bali, on the sidelines of the G20. Kamala Harris repeated Joe Biden’s message that “we must maintain open lines of communication to responsibly manage competition between our countries.”
Deter Pyongyang
For his part, Xi Jinping expects the world’s two largest economies to “reduce (sense) misunderstandings and errors of judgment” to promote “the return of healthy and stable relations”. “I hope that the vice-president will play an active role” in this process, said the leader, quoted by state media. His meeting with Joe Biden, the first face-to-face since the Democratic president came to power, “has great importance” for the continuation of the exchanges between Beijing and Washington which, from Taiwan to the war in Ukraine, keep matters of disagreement.
Sign of relaxation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to visit China in early 2023, which would be the first visit by a senior US official since 2018. Xi Jinping could go to the United States in 2023, which would be his first visit since 2017, for the next Apec summit to be held in San Francisco in November.
The United States is asking for China’s help to dissuade North Korea from carrying out a nuclear test, which has been increasingly feared by Washington and Seoul following a recent record series of ballistic missile launches by Pyongyang. “We believe that Beijing has a role to play,” said another member of Kamala Harris’ delegation on Friday.
Joe Biden retained in the United States
China must use its influence over North Korea, of which it is the main diplomatic and economic ally, to encourage the regime of Kim Jong Un “not to go in this direction of provocations, which only destabilizes the region and the world,” the source said. Kamala Harris met the leaders of her Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Japanese and South Korean allies on Friday in an emergency meeting in response to the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile by Pyongyang.
Joe Biden did not make the trip to Bangkok, held back by his granddaughter’s wedding in Washington. After Thailand, Kamala Harris is expected Tuesday in the Philippine province of Palawan, on the shores of the South China Sea, a large part of which is claimed by Beijing. She will become the highest American official to go there. The Apec agenda was dominated by security issues, between the fear of a North Korean nuclear test, tensions in the East and South China Seas, and the war in Ukraine.
This summit, which ends on Saturday, concludes a busy diplomatic sequence in the region, after the summits of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Phnom Penh and the G20 in Bali.
AFP
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