In the final meeting as the President of the United States, Joe Biden met Chinese President Xi Jinping at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and Xi told Biden that Beijing is “ready to work” with the new US administration under President-elect Donald Trump. The two leaders, who last met in November 2023 in San Francisco, held talks on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru. Biden was expected to urge Xi to restrain North Korea from extending any further support to Russia in its war against Ukraine. Xi didn’t take Republican Trump’s name but appeared to signal that the political rhetoric used by the president-elect during the 2024 presidential campaign could send the US-China relationship into another valley, reported Associated Press. I met with the leaders of APEC today to reaffirm our commitment to building inclusive, resilient, and sustainable economies across the Asia-Pacific. pic.twitter.com/pgxZlusAqJ — President Biden (@POTUS) November 16, 2024 “China is ready to work with a new U.S. administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences so as to strive for a steady transition of the China-U.S. relationship for the benefit of the two peoples,” Xi Jinping said in a statement. Biden talked about the US-China relations and where do they stand at present, he also mentioned his long relationship not restraining to the last four years of his presidency. “Over the past four years, China-U.S. relations have experienced ups and downs, but with the two of us at the helm, we have also engaged in fruitful dialogues and cooperation, and generally achieved stability,” Biden said in a statement. The meeting comes two months ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration as the President and he has been in the headlines for the recent selections of his team by deploying US Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Representative Mike Waltz as national security adviser, who are known to have hawkish voices on China. The uncertainty among US-China relations and the trade war is set to roll the ball again as Trump has vowed to adopt a sweeping 60% tariff on US imports of Chinese products in order to promote his campaign of “America First” measure, which the Beijing administration opposes.
