US-China relations, Xi holds out his hand to Biden: “Our relationship is the most important in the world”
The US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer met with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and asked for support for Israel, after the Hamas attacks which caused hundreds of deaths, saying he was “very disappointed” with the message released yesterday by Beijing. There criticism of China came both during the meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, who has received Schumer at the Diaoyutai State Guest Houseand during the meeting with the Chinese leader.
“The events of the last few days in Israel are horrific. I urge you and the Chinese people to stand with the Israeli people and condemn these cowardly and violent attacks,” Schumer said. adding that he was “very disappointed” by China’s statement that it showed no “empathy or support for Israel in these hard and troubled times.” The reference is to Beijing’s first comment, when the Chinese Foreign Ministry had appealed for calm and for a truce, underlining that “fundamentally, the way out of the conflict lies inimplement the two-state solution and establish an independent state of Palestine”.
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With Xi, the issues were especially affected themes of the difficult relationship between China and the United Statesdestined to have an impact on the destiny of humanity, Xi said in the opening remarks of themeeting, the first in eight years with the leaders of the US Congress. Relations between China and the United States “are the most important bilateral relations in the world,” he said Xi, and “there is every reason to try to stabilize relations with the United States and none to worsen them”continued the Chinese president.
Words, those of Xi, which seem to prepare the ground for a possible meeting with US president Joe Biden – for which there are still no certainties – on the sidelines of the Apec (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit scheduled for next month in San Francisco.
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The rare visit to China by a bipartisan US congressional delegation led by Schumer had at the center are the relations between the two great world powers. The main goal of the trip, Schumer said, was to seek reciprocity with Beijing on the economic level and a level playing field for U.S. companies in China. “We need reciprocity, which means that American companies must be able to compete in China as Chinese companies are able to compete in America. Many Americans don’t believe there is fairness right now,” Schumer said.
Wang: “China and the US must cooperate on international challenges in Ukraine, Palestine and Afghanistan”
For Wang, China and the United States must “play their roles” in the face of international challenges, among which he listed the war in Ukraine, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the earthquake in Afghanistan, and Stabilizing China-US relations is the “right move”which meets the common interests of the two countries and the world. In Beijing, the US Senate majority leader also met with the Chinese president, at the Great Hall of the People. The visit of the US senators is part of the wake of high-level meetings in recent months to try to stabilize relations, even if the Chinese president had so far only met the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, last June, among the senior officials Americans who went to Beijing.
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