November 15, 2023
That was the President tonight talking about his four-hour meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
And I know that picking up the phone and talking to each other sounds like a no brainer – but the fact is – relations between the United States and China have been so bad over the last year or so that those phones weren’t ringing.
But that’s not all that happened. President Biden said the two leaders agreed to three major items and talked about several other items.
Major item number one — China and the United States have agreed to cooperate in reducing the export from China of the pill presses and the precursor chemicals that go into making fentanyl. The president says this will go a long way in significantly reducing the flow of those deadly chemicals into our country. The two countries have also agreed to coordinating law enforcement in both the US and China to make sure this works.
Major item number two – restarting the communications between the United States military and the Chinese military. I told you in this video earlier today that late last year, China’s military cut off military communication with the US military which is extremely dangerous and can lead to miscommunications with deadly consequences. Well – that silent treatment is going to stop today.
And major item number three – the United States and China bring their experts together to work on regulations for artificial intelligences. The United States has already been having these conversations with other European countries and our allies but now, China wants in on those talks too.
But the question is – after all this recent bad blood, can President Biden trust that President Xi will live up to these agreements.
President Biden said he also spoke with President Xi about Russia’s role in Ukraine – you know Russia and China are very close – they talked about human rights violations the United States believes China is committing, they talked about peace with Taiwan and Biden told Xi he didn’t want China interfering in the 2024 election.
Now – it’s worth noting the Chinese state media – which as you know – does nothing without the blessing of the Chinese communist party – had high praise for this meeting and it was clear that President Xi wanted to restore some kind of lines of communications with the United States. But – it’s worth noting – at the very end of the press conference tonight – President Biden said he still believes Xi is a “dictator.” Who knows how that’s gonna go over.
Watch the President’s press conference about agreements here.
