Biden And Xi Hold "Candid" Call On US-China Relations

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have held their first call since November to discuss US-China bilateral relations and issues of common concern, likely to have included military tensions in the South China Sea, the war in Ukraine, measures to curb the export of fentanyl precursor chemicals, and Taiwan's presidential inauguration in May.

• Xinhua reports that Xi said, “relations show signs of stablisation [but] on the other hand, negative factors in Sino-US relations are also increasing.”
• The call comes ahead of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's April 3-9 trip to China and in the wake of last week's China Development Forum in Beijing where Xi met with more than a dozen US business leaders to promote investment.
• Although tensions between Beijing and Washington have cooled since Biden and Xi met at the APEC summit in San Francisco in November, export controls and restrictions on high-tech remains a point of contention.
• China is expected to figure prominently when US and EU officials meet in Belgium on Thursday for the final summit of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) summit before EU and US elections. The US will be represented by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
• The Atlantic Council notes in a preview of the TTC: “This meeting will be crucial for convincing whoever is in power next year that the TTC is an experiment worth continuing.”