The much-awaited virtual summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden may help ease the tensions between the world's two largest economies and allow for a return to a more constructive and stable relationship, according to a China Global Television Network (CGTN) video commentary released on Wednesday.
The commentary by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an international corporate strategist and investment banker, who also hosts CGTN's "The Watcher", said that it is good that President Xi and President Biden are talking to each other because it signals a good start for the two countries to improve their relations.
The following is the commentary made by Kuhn:
“Now they are talking and for that we should all be applauding, applauding quietly and cautiously because this is only a first baby step in the right direction. Although it does follow an earlier baby step with the surprise joint U.S.-China declaration of climate change at COP26.
It is good that the two state leaders can draw on their personal relationship, they had spent considerable time together when each was vice-president.”
President Biden began the online summit by saying: "We've spent an awful lot of time talking to one another, and I hope we can have a candid conversation tonight as well," adding, "We never walk away wondering what the other man is thinking." Biden continued by stressing "our responsibility as leaders of China and the United States is to ensure that the competition between our countries does not veer into conflict, whether intended or unintended, just simple, straightforward competition."
President Xi replied that, "Although it's not as good as a face-to-face meeting, I am very happy to see my old friend", China and the U.S. should respect each other, coexist in peace, and pursue win-win cooperation, and should shoulder their due international responsibilities. Xi expressed his readiness to work with President Biden to build consensus and take active steps to move China-U.S. relations forward in a positive direction. Doing so, he said, will advance the interests of the two peoples and meet the expectation of the international community.
All areas of the "complex nature of relations" were discussed, the contentious areas: Xinjiang, Tibet, Hong Kong, human rights broadly, South China Sea, key regional challenges, cyber, technology, economic practices, trade frictions, and especially Taiwan, and the areas crying out for cooperation: climate change, pandemic control, law enforcement, and the global economy. The objective was not to resolve problems, of course these issues are too structural and too deep but rather, in the argot of the times, to put "guardrails" around bilateral relations to prevent them from getting even worse by, according to Biden, "managing competition responsibly," and according to Xi, "managing differences and sensitive issues in a constructive way." Stopping the slide would be a major accomplishment.
The more Presidents Xi and Biden speak, the harder it will be for each to criticize the other, which is why the best signals are agreement for more personal interactions like this one, to maintain close communication in different forms, both governmental and military.
