After a long week of travels, US President Joe Biden landed in Bali for the G20 summit. Before its start, a long meeting with Xi Jinping was scheduled.
Last week was a busy one for US President Joe Biden. After a close election day on November 8th which did not give any clear winner, Biden started a week-long tour of the world. This marks a change from his predecessor, Republican President Donald Trump, who preferred a more isolationist policy.
President Biden did not fail to point out his presence abroad, tweeting that “America is back” to leading the world.
On my first trip overseas last year, I said that America was back — back at home, back at the table, and back to leading the world.
In the year and a half that’s followed, this Administration has shown exactly what that means.
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 15, 2022
His first stop was at the COP27 in Sharm-El-Sheikh where his presence was highly requested. The United States have increased their carbon footprint in 2022, and as the highest polluters in the world many think they should also be the first to take action. Joe Biden reiterated the pledge to provide 11 billion dollars annually in aid for third world countries affected by climate change.
Then he flew to East-Asia, all while keeping an eye on the still uncertain Midterm elections. During the weekend, before Biden’s next stop, his Democratic Party snatched a win in the Senate, while the House seemed likely to go Republican. Still, the elections went better than the Democrats thought, a sign that Biden did not completely disappoint the American people.
Finally, Joe Biden landed in Bali, Indonesia for the G20 meeting. Before starting the summit, however, he met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Biden and Xi are the heads of the two biggest powers in the world, and probably the biggest rivals on the geopolitical landscape.
This meeting was crucial for both countries’ foreign policy.
What happened at the meeting between Biden and Xi
The tete-a-tete between Biden and Xi lasted for roughly three hours. Afterwards, in a press conference, both leaders expressed their view on the meeting. The focus seems to have been, predictably enough, Taiwan.
Tensions regarding Taiwan between the US and China skyrocketed when speaker Nancy Pelosi flew to the island some months ago. Beijing, on that occasion, increased military activity above and around Taiwan, threatening once more a full scale invasion.
In the meeting, Biden assured Xi that the United States wants to maintain the “One China policy”. Taiwan, at the moment, is not recognized as an independent state by the US, which keeps a sort of “diplomatic ambiguity”. They pledge to preserve Taiwan’s sovereignty without angering Beijing with a formal recognition.
Hence, the White House reported that “On Taiwan, [Biden] laid out in detail that our one China policy has not changed, the United States opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side, and the world has an interest in the maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”
So, America wants to keep the status quo, which is understandable given that it favors them. Xi defined the question of Taiwan as “the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations.”
So, the status quo should be preserved for now. Biden also said that “there need not be a new Cold War.” Both sides, however, maintain a certain ambiguity on their geopolitical position. And with China getting closer to Russia, the status quo could indeed be broken at some point in the future.
