US President Joe Biden revealed this Sunday that he had a “non-hostile” meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang on the sidelines of the G20 summit in India. The president revealed during a press conference in Hanoi that he had spoken with Li at the G20 summit, in which Chinese President Xi Jinping did not participate.
Biden seemed to let slip at one point that he had seen Li. When journalists were asking him about the relationship with China, the president let it slip that he had met Xi’s “number two,” but he did not say her name.
Later, when journalists continued to ask him, Biden gave some details of the meeting. “We talked about the conference in general. We talked about stability,” said the president, who also spoke with Li about how to ensure that the so-called Global South can access new opportunities.
“The meeting was not hostile,” the president added and then ended the press conference by saying that he was going to “bed” to sleep.
The White House has not sent any statement about the meeting and it is unknown if it was a formal meeting or an informal conversation in the hallways of the convention center where the G20 was held.
Just this Sunday, as the US delegation left India, one of the president’s foreign policy advisers, Jon Finer, told reporters aboard Air Force One that he did not have any information about talks between the president and the Chinese prime minister. .
Biden’s press conference was focused on China, and on several occasions he responded to questions by saying, “I don’t want to contain China.”
He also gave his opinion on Taiwan and the situation of China’s economy, hit in recent weeks by a series of negative indicators and in which the value of the yuan, the Chinese currency, reached its lowest levels against the dollar in recent days. 16 years.
Specifically, one of the journalists asked Biden about whether China’s economic situation could cause it to invade Taiwan, the island whose sovereignty Beijing claims and to which Washington provides a large amount of weapons.
“I don’t think that’s going to make China invade Taiwan. In fact, on the contrary, it probably won’t have the same capacity as it had before,” the American leader replied.
Taiwan has been one of the reasons for rising tensions between the US and China in recent months, although the relationship appeared to improve after the bilateral meeting between Biden and Xi in November 2022 on the sidelines of the G20 in Bali.
However, relations soured again after an alleged Chinese spy balloon flew over the United States in January.
Biden has tried to mend relations and has sent some of the most important members of his Government to Beijing in recent months, such as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
