The US and China have agreed to work towards setting up a meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping after the US president met with China’s foreign minister on Friday. Biden has invited Xi to San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit. The Chinese president has not yet confirmed he will come. Biden held talks with Wang Yi and other senior US officials in Washington, the White House said, with both countries agreeing to keep up “high-level diplomacy” to try to smooth ties. The two sides…
Tag: Joe Biden
White House meeting: key takeaways from Anthony Albanese’s visit to Washington
Anthony Albanese is in the final stages of an official visit to Washington. He wanted to engage the president of the United States, Joe Biden, on a range of policy fronts during the four-day trip. Here are the key takeaways from the visit. Trouble with nuclear submarines When the prime minister arrived in Washington, dysfunction in the legislature was on full display. The House of Representatives had been paralysed for three weeks because there was no speaker. This chaos affects the biggest defence project in Australia’s history. The Biden administration…
Aukus will ‘get done’ despite jitters in Congress, Biden tells Albanese at White House meeting
Joe Biden has played down congressional jitters over the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine deal and has revealed he assured Xi Jinping that the countries involved are not aiming to “surround China”. The US president welcomed the Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to the White House and insisted he was “confident that we’re going to be able to get the money for Aukus because it’s overwhelmingly in our interest”. “So the question is not if, but when,” Biden said during a joint press conference with Albanese in the rose garden on Wednesday…
Xi says China willing to cooperate with US as hopes rise for talks with Biden
The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, has said China is willing to cooperate with the US as both sides manage their differences and work together to respond to global challenges, raising hopes of a meeting between Xi and the US president, Joe Biden, this year. In a letter delivered at an annual dinner of the National Committee on US-China Relations in New York, Xi said whether or not the US and China could establish the “right” way of getting along would be crucial to the world, according to state media. Xi’s…
Pacific divided on Biden’s charm offensive with calls for more ‘results on the ground’
US president Joe Biden’s latest bid to woo Pacific nations has been broadly welcomed by the region’s leaders and analysts, while some called for more to be done to support their economies and sought “results on the ground” over pledges. Biden hosted a group of Pacific leaders at a summit in Washington this week, after a similar meeting a year earlier, in an effort widely seen as a push against China’s growing presence in the region. Kaliopate Tavola, an ex-minister in Fiji and the country’s former ambassador to Brussels, said…
Biden pledges $40bn to Pacific islands as summit seeks to reassert influence
Joe Biden has offered $40bn in economic aid to Pacific islands at a White House meeting with leaders from the region aimed at bolstering US engagement in the face of growing a growing Chinese presence. The president also announced formal US recognition of two new island nations, the Cook Islands and Niue, at the start of the Pacific Islands Forum, two days of Washington meetings with leaders from the group’s 18 members. “The United States committed to ensuring an Indo-Pacific region that is free, open, prosperous and secure. We’re committed…
Biden Pacific summit suffers setback as Solomon Islands PM skips meeting
The White House has said it is disappointed the Solomon Islands prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, will not attend a Pacific Islands summit with Joe Biden next week. The US president will host a second summit with leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum at the White House on Monday as part of his efforts to step up engagement with a region where the US is in a battle for influence with China. “We are disappointed that PM Sogavare of the Solomons does not plan to attend,” a Biden Administration official said.…
China concerns drive historic upgrade in US-Vietnam relations
Over the weekend, US President Joe Biden arrived in Hanoi and finalised a diplomatic agreement with former foe Vietnam that was, until recently, almost unthinkable. Shortly after touching down in the country, Biden met Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist party of Vietnam, to upgrade their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP), the highest of Vietnam’s three diplomatic levels – save for a special category reserved for Cambodia and Laos. This puts the US in the same category as China, Russia, India, and South Korea, a move…
Joe Biden calls for stable US-China relationship during south-east Asia tour
Joe Biden’s national security tour of south-east Asia reached Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, where the president called for stability in the US-China relationship against an increasingly complex diplomatic picture in the region for his country. “I don’t want to contain China,” Biden said. “I just want to make sure that we have a relationship with China that is on the up and up, squared away, everybody knows what it’s all about.” Biden also said that China’s recent economic downturn may limit any inclination to invade Taiwan. “I don’t think it’s…
G20: battle for influence as US seeks to rival China in the global south
The run-up to this weekend’s G20 summit in Delhi has largely been dominated by two issues: the host’s efforts to project India as a superpower; and the intriguing decision of Xi Jinping not to attend. The substance of what world leaders will discuss during their two days together has struggled to surface. Yet this year’s G20 – the 24th since the format was inaugurated in 1999 – is potentially a make or break moment for the organisation that includes the world’s 19 wealthiest nations plus the European Union as a…