US President said on Sunday he held his highest-level talks with Chinese
leadership in months, adding that Beijing’s economic wobbles would not lead it to
invade .
Biden said he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s No.2, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, at
the G20 summit in New Delhi. The talks were the highest level meeting between the two
powers in nearly 10 months since Biden and Xi spoke at last year’s G20 in Indonesia.
“My team, my staff still meets with President Xi’s people and his cabinet,” Biden told
reporters. “I met with his No.2 person in India today.” He added: “We talked about
stability,” and the Southern Hemisphere. “It wasn’t confrontational at all.”
Speaking at a press conference in Vietnam, Biden touted the US economy as the
“strongest” globally. He told reporters that China’s growth was slowing due to a weak
global economy as well as Chinese policies, but did not specify which policies. Biden
called China’s economic situation a “crisis”, citing issues in the real estate sector and
high youth unemployment. “One of the major economic tenets of his plan isn’t working
at all right now,” Biden said of Xi, without elaborating.
Biden has tried to keep communications open with China to lower the temperature in
international frictions including over Taiwan. “I don’t think this is going to cause China to
invade Taiwan,” Biden said of China’s economic troubles. “As a matter of fact, the
opposite, probably doesn’t have the same capacity that it had before.” He described the
US as a Pacific power with no intention of withdrawing from the region.
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