President Biden spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday for the first time since taking office.
The two world leaders spoke by telephone, and Biden raised various concerns about the economy and human rights.
“President Biden stressed his fundamental concerns about Beijing’s coercive and unjust economic practices, repression in Hong Kong, human rights abuses in Xinjiang and increasingly vindictive actions in the region, even towards Taiwan. “, the White House said in a statement.
Biden and Xi also “exchanged views on the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and the shared challenges of global health security, climate change and the prevention of arms proliferation,” the statement said.
Wednesday’s call was also the first time since March that a U.S. president spoke with the Chinese leader.
The changing US-China alliance poses one of the biggest foreign policy challenges for Biden’s presidency.
Under his predecessor Donald Trump, the United States struck heavy tariffs on Chinese goods, criticized President Xi Jinping for the country’s mishandling of the first coronavirus pandemic cases, and condemned human rights abuses against the Uighurs.
In an interview with CBS News over the weekend, Biden acknowledged that China was a growing rival to the United States in terms of economic power and military power, but said he would handle things differently than Trump.
“There will be extreme competition and I won’t do it the way he knows,” Biden said of Jinping.
“I will not do it as Trump did. We will focus on international road rules, ”he continued, insisting that there should be no conflict between the two countries.
Although Communist Beijing described the new Biden administration as “a new window of hope” for American relations, the relationship has begun strongly.
China’s Foreign Ministry rejected Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s appeals to work together on climate change after saying it agreed that the Chinese government’s treatment of Uighur Muslims amounted to “genocide. “.
“It is impossible to ask for China’s support in global affairs while interfering in its internal affairs and undermining its interests,” a statement said.