APEC Summit Biden-Xi Meeting Seeing Xi Up Close A Subtle Shift in Power Balance Biden’s ‘Trust but Verify’ Diplomacy Focus on Fentanyl

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       News Analysis

       For Biden, a Subtle Shift in the Power Balance With China’s Xi Jinping

       For the first time in years, a Chinese leader desperately needed a few things from the United States.

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       As President Biden and President Xi Jinping of China met in Woodside, Calif., on Wednesday, Mr. Xi stayed away from the aggressive “wolf warrior” tone he had once encouraged. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

       By David E. Sanger

       Reporting from San Francisco

       Nov. 16, 2023

       阅读简体中文版 阅读繁体中文版

       When President Biden met President Xi Jinping on Wednesday on the edges of Silicon Valley, there was a subtle but noticeable shift in the power dynamic between two countries that have spent most of the past few years denouncing, undercutting and imposing sanctions on each other.

       For the first time in years, a Chinese leader desperately needed a few things from the United States. Mr. Xi’s list at the summit started with a revival of American financial investments in China and a break in the series of technology export controls that have, at least temporarily, crimped Beijing’s ability to make the most advanced semiconductors and the artificial intelligence breakthroughs they enable.

       All this may explain why Mr. Biden’s aides were able to negotiate, fairly quickly by Chinese diplomatic standards, a potentially major agreement on stopping the flow of the chemical precursors for fentanyl to the United States and a resumption of military-to-military communications, critical for two superpowers whose forces bump up against each other every day.

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       Biden, Xi Make Progress on Military Talks and Fentanyl President Biden said that China’s president, Xi Jinping, had agreed to resume military-to-military communication.

       We’re reassuming military-to-military contact, direct contacts. As a lot of you press know or follow this, that’s been cut off. It’s been worrisome. That’s how accidents happen – misunderstandings. So we’re back to direct, open, clear, direct communications on a direct basis. Vital miscalculations on either side can cause real, real trouble with a country like China or any other major country. And so I think we’re making real progress there as well. Do I trust? I trust but verify, as the old saying goes. That’s where I am. And, you know, we’re in a competitive relationship - China and the United States. But my responsibility is to make this rational and manageable, so it - so it doesn’t result in conflict. That’s what I’m all about. That’s what this is about. We’re in a situation where we agreed that fentanyl and its precursors will be curbed substantially – and the pill presses. That’s a big moment.

       President Biden said that China’s president, Xi Jinping, had agreed to resume military-to-military communication. CreditCredit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

       “Restoring these military-to-military contacts, and not just at the secretary of defense level, but also at the regional command level and the operational level, is really critical to helping to avoid miscalculations and mistakes,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in an interview on Thursday.

       The lurking question now is whether Mr. Xi’s charm offensive — on full display Wednesday night as he entertained chief executives — marks a lasting shift or a tactical maneuver.

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