07:39     16 November 2023    

President Xi Jinping and United States President Joe Biden agreed on Wednesday to resume the high-level military-to-military communication between the two countries on the basis of equality and respect, as part of the consensus they reached during their meeting in San Francisco. During the summit meeting, Xi reiterated that the Taiwan question remains the most important and most sensitive issue in China-US relations. He urged the US to take real actions to honor its commitment of not supporting "Taiwan independence", stop arming Taiwan and support China's peaceful reunification. "China will realize reunification, and this is unstoppable," he told Biden. The two presidents had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on strategic and overarching issues critical to the direction of China-US relations and on major issues affecting world peace and development when they met at Filoli Estate, a country house approximately 40 km south of San Francisco, according to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry after the summit meeting. Noting how the China-US relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world, Xi said that, for the two countries, turning their back on each other is not an option, and it is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides. Xi reiterated that mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation are the right ways for the two major countries to get along with each other. He underlined the need for both countries to jointly develop a right perception, manage their disagreements effectively, advance mutually beneficial cooperation, shoulder their responsibilities as major countries and promote people-to-people exchanges. Xi pointed out that US actions against China regarding export control, investment screening and unilateral sanctions seriously hurt China's legitimate interests, saying stifling China's technological progress is nothing but a move to contain China's high-quality development and deprive the Chinese people of their right to development. He said China's development, driven by its own inherent logic, will not be stopped by external forces. "It is important that the US side take China's concerns seriously and adopt tangible steps to lift its unilateral sanctions so as to provide an equal, fair and nondiscriminatory environment for Chinese businesses." The two presidents acknowledged the efforts of their respective teams to discuss the development of principles related to China-US relations since the meeting in Bali, Indonesia last November. They stressed the importance of the two countries treating each other with respect and finding a way to live alongside each other peacefully, and of maintaining open lines of communication, preventing conflict, upholding the United Nations Charter, cooperating on areas of shared interest and responsibly managing competitive aspects of the relationship. The two presidents agreed to promote and strengthen dialogue and cooperation between the two countries in various areas including China-US government talks on AI and the establishment of a working group on counternarcotics cooperation. They agreed to resume the China-US Defense Policy Coordination Talks and the China-US Military Maritime Consultative Agreement meetings, and to conduct telephone conversations between theater commanders. The two leaders also agreed to commit to work toward a significant further increase in scheduled passenger flights early next year, and expand educational, student, youth, cultural, sports and business exchanges. They also underscored the importance of working together to accelerate efforts to tackle the climate crisis in this critical decade, and welcomed recent positive discussions between their respective special envoys for climate.