U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping met on Monday for the first time in person as leaders of their countries and vowed to keep communication channels open and seek ways to work together on globally important issues.
U.S.-Chinese relations hit a new low in August after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, in the highest-level U.S. visit to Taiwan in 25 years.
China, which claims Taiwan is part of China, slammed the visit, saying that "It has a severe impact on the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and seriously infringes upon China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. It gravely undermines peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and sends a seriously wrong signal to the separatist forces for 'Taiwan independence'."
Meeting in Indonesia today ahead of the G20 summit, the leaders of the two world superpowers agreed that relations and communication need to improve.
"As the leaders of our two nations, we share responsibility, in my view, to show that China and the United States can manage our differences, prevent competition from ... turning into conflict, and to find ways to work together on urgent global issues that require our mutual cooperation," President Biden said.
He stressed that he intended to keep the lines of communication open with President Xi and across the board on a government level.
Xi, for his part, said, as carried by Reuters, "So we need to chart the right course for the China-U.S. relationship. We need to find the right direction for the bilateral relationship going forward and elevate the relationship."
"The world expects that China and the United States will properly handle the relationship," the Chinese president added.
As well as Taiwan, U.S.-China relations have been roiled in recent years by trade disputes and tariffs and U.S. restrictions on sales of American-made equipment to Chinese chip makers.
There have been quiet efforts on both sides in the past two months to repair U.S-China ties, American officials told Reuters.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More