Biden sees no need for ‘a new Cold War’ with China after three hour

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said there “need not be a new Cold War” between the U.S. and China, following a three hour summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia on Monday.

Biden also said he doesn’t “think there’s any imminent attempt by China to invade Taiwan,” despite escalating rhetoric and aggressive military moves by the P.R.C. in the Taiwan Straits.

Biden and his counterpart held the much anticipated meeting on the sidelines of the G20 meeting of global economically developed nations in Bali.

Biden said he and Xi spoke frankly, and they agreed to send diplomats and cabinet members from their administrations to meet with one another in person to resolve pressing issues.

The meeting was the first one Biden and Xi have held face-to-face since the U.S. president was elected in 2020, and it appeared to represent a significant thaw in relations between Washington and its biggest strategic competitor and long-term military adversary.

Beijing’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the conversation was “in-depth, candid and constructive” in a statement afterwards.

The two leaders reached “important common understandings,” said the MFA, and they were prepared now “to take concrete actions to put China-U.S. relations back on the track of steady development.”

Biden said he and Xi also discussed Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine, a sensitive subject given that China has become Russia’s economic lifeline in the wake of sanctions that cut off Moscow’s trade relations with most of the world’s major democracies, including the United States and EU member states.

“We reaffirmed our shared belief that the threat or the use of nuclear weapons is totally unacceptable,” Biden said at a brief press conference after the meeting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly suggested that Russia’s use of a nuclear weapon in Ukraine would be within its rights, the first time in 70 years that a nuclear power has seriously threatened deploying an atomic weapon to augment conventional warfare.

This is a developing story, please check back for updates.