President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met for the third and final time on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru on Saturday, in the wake of the U.S. presidential election.
“The United States has recently concluded its elections,” Xi told Biden. “China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-U.S. relationship remains unchanged.”
“China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences, so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-US relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi continued.
Their meeting comes as President-elect Trump — who has long talked tough on China, even as he occasionally expressed his admiration for Xi’s strength as its leader — is set to return to the White House.
He has vowed to impose a 60-percent tariff on Chinese goods, as well as general tariffs of 10-to-20 percent on all imports.
Chinese authorities previously told The Hill they don’t want a trade war and stressed the importance of the stability of global production and supply chains.
During Trump’s first term, his trade policies included steep tariffs on Chinese goods and a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
During Xi’s opening remarks, he emphasized the importance of good U.S.-China relations.
“When the two countries treat each other as partner and friend, seek common ground while shelving differences and help each other succeed, our relationship would make considerable progress. But if we take each other as rivals or adversary, pursue vicious competition, and seek to hurt each other, we would roil the relationship or even set it back,” Xi said.
Biden’s opening remarks also highlighted the partnership between China and the U.S.
“We are the most important alliance – or the most important relationship in the entire world, and how we’re getting along together can impact the rest of the world. And so our two countries can not let any of this competition veer into conflict. That’s our responsibility and over the last four years I think we’ve proven it’s possible to have this relationship,” Biden said.
Xi used his speeches during the summit to reject protectionism. Conversation surrounding APEC thus far has largely focused on heightened trade and security rivalry between the U.S. and China.
Earlier this year, Biden and Xi spoke on the phone as a “check-in” following a commitment between the two to take concrete actions to improve the relationship between the two countries, including discussing China’s anger at Washington’s support for Taiwan and China’s support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
