Biden Says US Not Seeking Conflict With China, as Xi Seeks Cooperation With Washington

(L) President Joe Biden speaks during the annual St. Patrick's Day luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, on March 17, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images); (R) Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, on March 4, 2021. Leo Ramirez/AFP via Getty Images

President Joe Biden said on Oct. 26 that the United States does not seek conflict with the Chinese regime, and its leader Xi Jinping knows this.

“We do not seek conflict with them,” Biden said of China’s communist regime during a meeting with top military advisers.

Biden added that the United States would continue to lead the world on several issues that Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership had failed to pursue, including curbing Russia’s war of conquest in Ukraine and climate change initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region.

Meanwhile, CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping said on Oct. 27 that the regime is willing to cooperate with the United States for mutual benefit.

The two nations, Xi said, could use their status as major powers to provide stability to the world by strengthening communications and cooperation, Chinese state television reported on Thursday.

The comments came just ahead of November’s G-20 summit in Indonesia, where Biden and Xi are expected to meet in person for the first time in Biden’s presidency.

Tensions between China and the United States have been at their highest in decades over a range of contentious issues including U.S. lawmakers’ visits to Taiwan, the CCP’s covert espionage campaigns within the United States, and the use of American technologies in Chinese weapons.

U.S. prosecutors earlier this week unveiled charges against more than a dozen individuals, including 10 Chinese intelligence officers or officials, across three cases involving an alleged effort to obstruct a criminal prosecution, forcibly repatriate a U.S.-based dissident back to China, and recruit U.S. spies for China.

Xi, who just secured an unprecedented third term as leader of the CCP, recently reaffirmed that China would never renounce the right to use force against Taiwan and its inhabitants. The CCP views the democratic island as part of its territory, even though Taiwan has been ruled as an independent entity for more than seven decades and has never been under CCP control.

Washington and allies have sounded the alarm over the Chinese regime’s increasing aggression towards the island, citing frequent aircraft incursions in the area near Taiwan and unprecedented military drills surrounding the island in August, coinciding with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) high-profile visit to Taipei.

Xi and Biden will attend the G20 summit in Indonesia in November, and are rumored to be preparing a meeting, but no information has been officially released.

Reuters contributed to this report.