They meet on Monday. The US president will call on his Chinese counterpart to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Tensions over Taiwan and trade.
US President Joe Biden arrived in Asia on Saturday promising to urge his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to curb North Korea’s “worst tendencies” when the two leaders meet for the first time in person during the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday.
At the meeting of the world’s great economies, Biden will tell Xi that China “is interested in contain North Korea’s worst tendencies,” Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, told the press.
The White House chief arrived in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh on Saturday to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit before heading to Bali for the G20.
Biden will also tell Xi that if North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons buildup “continues down that path, it will simply mean increased US military and security presence in the region“.
Speaking aboard Air Force One presidential jet shortly before arriving in Cambodia, Sullivan said Biden will not make demands on China, but will give Xi “his perspective.”
He noted that “North Korea poses a threat not only to the United States, not only to (South Korea) and Japan, but to the peace and stability of the entire region.”
Whether China wants to put pressure on North Korea is “of course up to them,” Sullivan said.
However, with North Korea expected to test a nuclear weapon and increasing its missile capabilities, “the operational situation is more dire at the present time,” Sullivan said.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida added his voice to calls for concerted international action to stop Pyongyang’s missile program during talks with ASEAN, China and South Korea.
alarm in asia
Tokyo and Seoul are increasingly alarmed by the recent series of missile launches, including an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Biden and Xi, leaders of the world’s two largest economies, have spoken by phone several times since Biden took office in January 2021, but they have never met in person.
The two will have much to talk about, amid the many disputes between Washington and Beijing over trade, human rights in the Chinese region of Xinjiang and Taiwan.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the two countries to work together and warned on Friday of the “increasing risk that the world economy will split into two parts led by the two largest economies, the United States and China.”
Influence in Southeast Asia
Before the G20, Biden will seek to strengthen Washington’s influence in Southeast Asia in meetings with ASEAN leaders to counter Chinese influence in the region.
Beijing in recent years has intensified its presence through trade, diplomacy and military might, in a region it considers its backyard.
Sullivan indicated that Biden came to Phnom Penh with an agenda that emphasizes his government’s policy of “increasing” its presence in Southeast Asia as a guarantor of stability.
Biden and Xi come to the G20 buoyed by achievements at home: Biden’s party posted surprisingly positive results in the midterm elections while Xi secured a historic third presidential term.
At the Communist Party of China congress in October, Xi warned of a challenging geopolitical climate, without directly citing the United States.
reappearance in public
The Bali summit will also mark Xi’s diplomatic comeback since the start of the pandemic, when he stopped international travel.
Xi will also meet French President Emmanuel Macron before heading to Bangkok for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Who will not be in Bali is the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, rejected by the West after the invasion of Ukraine. He will be represented by his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov.
Lavrov will argue that the United States is destabilizing the Asia-Pacific region with its confrontational policy, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky will virtually participate in the G20 summit after ASEAN rejected his request to speak.
Fuente: AFP
CB