Just hours after Joe Biden announced the US military’s strategy toward China RevisionFor the first time since his election Wednesday evening local time, he spoke on the phone with Chinese President Xi Qing, who has also raised concerns about some human rights violations.
According to the White House statement, Joe Biden spoke of China’s crackdown on Hong Kong, grave human rights violations against the Uyghur Muslim minority, and actions against an increasingly assertive region like Taiwan. It is without:
The United States wants to keep the Indian region and the Pacific region free and open.
The US president also criticized Beijing’s “coercive and unfair trade practices.”
The two sides also discussed combating the Coronavirus pandemic and other common challenges, global health security, climate change and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Biden stressed his willingness to work together on the basis of common interests as long as it benefits the Americans.
Xinhua reported that the Chinese president said confrontation will be a disaster for both sides, cooperation is the only option, differences need a constructive solution, and mechanisms for dialogue and mutual understanding must be re-established.
Xi also expressed his hope to Biden that Washington would proceed cautiously on issues affecting Chinese sovereignty, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Xinjiang.
Hsi Chen Ping last spoke with then-US President Donald Trump last March. In the previous year, the quality of relations between the two countries deteriorated to their lowest level in ten years, and the conflict between Washington and Beijing intensified in a number of different areas.