By Bay City News.
The Chairman Joe Biden He spent more than four hours meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the Bay Area on Wednesday as part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit being held in the region over the past week.
Biden and Xi met at the Filoli estate in Woodside, south of San Francisco, on Wednesday morning for the bilateral meeting that began with Both heads of state acknowledging a tense relationship between the two countries.
“We've known each other for a long time, we haven't always agreed, which doesn't surprise anyone,” Biden said. “We have to ensure that competition does not conflict.”
A media report on the meeting, citing a “senior administration official,” said the conversations covered topics such as the role of Chinese politics in the production of fentanyl, a drug that has sparked an opioid crisis. in United States; reestablish talks between the militaries of the two countries, collaboration on artificial intelligence issues and ongoing conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, as well as the war between Israel and Hamas.
The status of Taiwan and Xi's preference for a "peaceful zone" and the country's reunification with China was "the biggest challenging and potentially dangerous issue in US-China relations," the unnamed official said, according to the group's report. .
“I think President Biden responded very clearly that the long-standing position of the United States was a determination to maintain peace and stability,” the official said of the president's response. “That he believed in the status quo. And that we asked the Chinese to respect the electoral process in Taiwan.”
Biden also attended an event at the Exploratorium science museum on the San Francisco waterfront Wednesday night with the governor Gavin Newsom, Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, Mayor London Breed and others.
The vice president Kamala Harris, who served as San Francisco district attorney before his promotion to state and federal office, spoke to Biden at the Exploratorium event, which also featured a video from Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry and the coach Steve Kerr, along with athletes Brandi Chastain and Kristi Yamaguchi.
“We owe a great debt of gratitude to the new mayor of the city of San Francisco,” Biden said in an apparent reference to Breed, who has been mayor since 2018. “And Governor Newsom, he is doing a great job.”
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