SAN FRANCISCO: Promoting trade, protecting supply chains and fighting the climate crisis will feature at the APEC summit of Pacific rim powers opening Thursday (Nov 16) in San Francisco after President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping helped settle regional nerves by agreeing to dial down tensions.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group includes 21 members but lives under the shadow of US-China relations. So the summit opened with a sense of relief after Biden and Xi held a lengthy session of their own at a sumptuous villa outside the city on Wednesday, and emerged pledging to avoid the kind of dangerous rift that could upend the world economy.
They agreed to restore military-to-military links – vital to avoiding dangerous superpower miscommunications – and Xi promised to crack down on production of the ingredients in China for the hugely addictive narcotic fentanyl flooding into the United States.
However, the two sides remain as far apart as ever on the issue of Taiwan, a US-backed democratic island that Beijing says is a sovereign part of China and should return under its full control.
Biden, for his part, said that despite his close relationship with Xi, he still considers the communist leader a “dictator” – a remark that drew fire from the Chinese government.
With the main summit starting in San Francisco, the focus broadened to the hugely dynamic area stretching from the coasts of Canada to Chile and across to Australia, China and Russia.
“We’ve got a few busy days ahead of us. The challenges before us today are unlike those faced by previous groups of APEC leaders,” Biden said after his Xi meeting, mentioning artificial intelligence, climate resilience, supply chains and the role of diplomacy.
Source: CNA
