Harris and Xi met throughout an Asia-Pacific summit in Bangkok the place one other US rival, Russia, noticed itself remoted, with no prime chief attending and a press release issued exhibiting extensive condemnation of its battle in Ukraine.
Talking to Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Financial Cooperation (APEC) discussion board, Harris strengthened Biden’s message that “we should keep open traces of communication to responsibly handle the competitors between our international locations”, a White Home official mentioned.
On Monday, Biden and Xi met for 3 hours at a Group of 20 summit in Bali, the primary in-person talks between the leaders of the world’s two largest economies since they every turned president.
Chinese language state media quoted Xi as telling Harris that his assembly with Biden was “strategic and constructive, and has essential guiding significance for China-US relations within the subsequent stage”.
“It’s hoped that the 2 sides will additional improve mutual understanding, scale back misunderstanding and misjudgement, and collectively promote the return of China-US relations to a wholesome and secure monitor,” added Xi, who’s on solely his second abroad journey for the reason that pandemic.
US and Chinese language officers have each put a optimistic spin on the renewal of diplomacy, whereas stopping wanting predicting any substantive decision of points dividing them — notably Taiwan, the self-governing democracy claimed by Beijing.
Xi and Biden agreed that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will go to China early subsequent yr, the primary go to by a prime US diplomat since 2018.
Blinken informed reporters in Bangkok that the contacts geared toward ensuring that competitors “doesn’t veer into battle” and inspecting areas of cooperation on international challenges resembling local weather change.
America mentioned it was additionally on the lookout for China to do extra to rein in its ally North Korea, which on Friday test-fired a ballistic missile that US and Japanese officers mentioned was probably able to hitting the US mainland.
China ought to use its affect to steer North Korea “to not go on this provocative route, which solely destabilises the area and the world”, mentioned a US official travelling with Harris.
If relations stay unchanged, Xi might see Biden in a yr’s time when the USA hosts the APEC summit in San Francisco.
Xi final visited the USA in 2017, assembly then president Donald Trump at his Florida property, however relations between the 2 international locations later sharply deteriorated over commerce, Taiwan, human rights and Covid-19.
APEC, which teams 21 economies, focuses on commerce slightly than political issues. However after US insistence, APEC adopted the system of this week’s G20 summit to take up the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, a member of each organisations.
“Most members strongly condemned the battle in Ukraine and pressured it’s inflicting immense human struggling and exacerbating current fragilities within the international financial system,” an APEC joint declaration mentioned.
“There have been different views and totally different assessments of the state of affairs and sanctions.”
America has been cautiously upbeat about China taking a distance from nominal ally Russia, together with by rejecting requests to ship army provides.
Whereas partaking Xi, the USA has vowed to shun Russian President Vladimir Putin who skipped this week’s Asian summits and is just about sure to not obtain an invite to San Francisco.
Harris, who’s initially from the San Francisco Bay Space, informed leaders in Bangkok that the USA would focus subsequent yr’s summit on elevating local weather ambitions.
She requested leaders to arrange new targets in time for the 2023 summit on lowering emissions from the ability sector, hoping to flesh out longer-term commitments by most APEC members on zeroing out carbon.