US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke on the phone for the first time since their crisis meeting in California in November. Bilateral meetings were apparently organised.
The White House announced this on Tuesday following the conversation. The two presidents met last November near the US metropolis of San Francisco for a face-to-face meeting after a full year of complete radio silence, to stabilize relations between the two countries.
During the meeting in the Californian city where the UN was founded, the two presidents also agreed to speak regularly on the phone again in the future. They complied now. A senior US administration official said further exchanges at the level of Cabinet members were expected after the presidents’ call.
Top diplomats travel to China
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen plans to travel to China again in the coming days and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the coming weeks. Visits by members of the Chinese government to the US are also planned. A telephone conversation between the defense ministers of both countries should also take place soon.
The resumption of military communications between the two countries was considered the main outcome of the crisis meeting between Biden and Xi in California four and a half months ago. The US government had previously repeatedly complained that the usual direct exchange between the two countries’ armed forces was not working and that it could lead to dangerous misunderstandings and miscalculations in crisis situations.
The bottleneck is Taiwan
Relations between the world’s two largest economies have long been tense, including after economic sanctions against Beijing and amid fears in the West that the Chinese military could invade Taiwan. Although the United States, like the vast majority of the international community, is committed to the One China Policy, it has agreed to a military agreement with China’s breakaway province of Taiwan.
Source: Krone
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