JAKARTA - United States President Joe Biden on Monday told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping the two of them were responsible for preventing the superpower's competition from turning into conflict, in the first face-to-face talks since Biden served as number one at the White House.
"It's great to meet you," President Biden told President Xi, embracing him, before a meeting that lasted more than three hours before the G20 summit in Bali.
President Biden put forward a number of difficult topics during the three-hour meeting, according to the White House, including filing US objections to China's "forceful and increasingly aggressive actions against Taiwan", Beijing's "non-market economy practices and practices in "Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, to human rights more broadly".
President Biden said earlier he was committed to keeping communication lines open at a personal and government level.
"As leaders of the two countries, we share the responsibility, in my view, to show that China and the United States can manage our differences, prevent competition from turning into conflict, finding ways to work together on urgent global issues that require our mutual cooperation," President Biden said in remarks delivered in front of reporters.
Responding to President Biden, President Xi said relations between the two countries did not meet global expectations.
"So we need to map out the right direction for China-US relations. We need to find the right direction for bilateral relations going forward and improve relations," Xi said.
"The world hopes China and the United States will handle the relationship well," he said, adding he hoped to work with Biden to get the relationship back on track.
US-China relations have flared up in recent years, with tensions rising over issues ranging from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea, US trade practices and restrictions on Chinese technology.
But US officials say there have been covert efforts by Beijing and Washington over the past two months to improve relations.
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