Biden and Xi Meet, Delivering Messages Seemingly Intended for Trump

Donald J. Trump has promised a more aggressive approach, after the Biden administration worked to avoid open conflict with Beijing.

When President Biden and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, met on Saturday in Peru, they spoke directly to each other for perhaps the last time about a fierce superpower rivalry that Mr. Biden has sought to keep from spiraling into open conflict.

But both men also seemed to be addressing someone not in the room: Donald J. Trump, who has promised to take a more aggressive approach to Beijing when he becomes president again in January.

Mr. Xi, in his opening remarks, offered what appeared to be a stern warning as U.S.-China relations enter a new period of uncertainty after the American election.

“Make the wise choice,” he said in a conference hall at a hotel in Lima where the Chinese delegation was staying. “Keep exploring the right way for two major countries to get along well with each other.”

In his own opening comments, Mr. Biden seemed to try to make the case for maintaining a relationship with Beijing, as Mr. Trump talks about imposing more punishing tariffs on China and picks hard-liners for top administration posts.

“These conversations prevent miscalculations, and they ensure the competition between our two countries will not veer into conflict — be competition, not conflict,” he said.

“That’s our responsibility, and over the last four years I think we’ve proven it’s possible to have this relationship,” Mr. Biden added before the meeting, which lasted one hour and 40 minutes.

But even as Mr. Biden’s session with Mr. Xi, during a gathering of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, began with conciliatory words, it also gave the president a final chance to challenge the Chinese leader directly on some of the many issues that divide the two countries.

As Mr. Biden — and his vision for the world — heads for the exits, China’s recent actions suggest that it has little interest in placating Washington.

American officials have expressed alarm over China’s increasingly close relationship with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. And Chinese hackers were recently accused of breaking into the American telecommunications system and obtaining information from the phones of U.S. officials.

Beijing has also continued to flex its muscle in Asia, with U.S. officials voicing growing concern about China’s military exercises around Taiwan and its broader aggression in the contested South China Sea.

Mr. Biden pushed Mr. Xi to maintain peace in Taiwan, and pressed the Chinese leader over Beijing’s support for Russia, according to his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. Mr. Biden also urged Mr. Xi to discourage North Korea from continuing to support Russia in its war in Ukraine, Mr. Sullivan said.

It was unclear how receptive Mr. Xi would be to any of Mr. Biden’s entreaties, with the clock quickly winding down on his presidency. China is now focused on preparing for the return of Mr. Trump, who has threatened to punish Beijing with 60 percent tariffs on its exported goods. Mr. Trump has also chosen Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, who has taken a hard line on China, as his nominee for secretary of state.

In his remarks, Mr. Xi signaled an openness to cooperation with the incoming Trump White House. But he struck a tough, blunt tone about the rivalry between the two superpowers.

“The ‘new Cold War’ cannot be fought and cannot be won, and containment of China is unwise, undesirable, and will not succeed,” he said, according to a Chinese government summary of the meeting.

Chief among his concerns, Mr. Xi made clear, was that the United States tread carefully in its approach to Taiwan, the island democracy China claims as its territory. Mr. Xi said that if the United States wanted to maintain peace in the region, it must oppose “Taiwan independence clearly.” He made an unusually specific reference to Taiwan’s president, Lai Ching-te, a possible warning to the incoming Trump administration about potential contact between the leaders.

Mr. Xi defended China’s position on the war in Ukraine as aboveboard and neutral. In a warning to the United States and its allies in the region, he said that he would not allow “war and chaos” in the Korean Peninsula and would not “sit idly by and watch” as China’s security and core interests there were threatened. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman was more direct, accusing the United States of “smearing and scapegoating China” on these issues.

Mr. Xi urged the United States not to intervene in the South China Sea, where China’s Coast Guard has grown more willing to use force to drive out the Philippines, a treaty ally of the United States. And he rejected the hacking accusations as baseless.

Still, the two nations sought to show that they could work on key issues. They agreed on Saturday to maintain control over nuclear weapons by humans, rather than artificial intelligence. Mr. Sullivan acknowledged the difficulty of ensuring that the new administration would respect any commitment agreed to on Saturday.

“The incoming administration is not in the business of providing us assurances about anything,” Mr. Sullivan said. “They’ll make their own decisions as they go forward.”

Mr. Biden raised the U.S. goal of transforming a Kenya-led and largely U.S.-funded security mission in Haiti to combat gangs into a formal U.N. peacekeeping mission. China has expressed opposition to such a shift. Mr. Sullivan said Mr. Xi did not indicate any change in his position.

The Biden administration in many ways continued the tough approach toward Beijing initiated by the first Trump administration, including on tariffs, while adding restrictions intended to slow the Chinese military’s technological advancements.

Mr. Biden’s top aides said that countering Beijing, particularly around the Taiwan Strait, must be a continued priority for the next administration.

For the past year, the Biden administration has tried to smooth tensions with China after the relationship hit a low point over a Chinese spy balloon that drifted over the United States and was ordered shot down by Mr. Biden. The two nations also tangled after Mr. Biden twice called Mr. Xi a “dictator” last year.

The White House has pointed to its shuttle diplomacy and efforts to open lines of communication as important steps in avoiding a spiral in relations.

Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi last met face to face in November 2023 in Northern California, where officials from both nations signaled a small improvement in the relationship. Since then, Mr. Biden’s aides have described steady progress in talks with Beijing and credited China’s effort to stem the flow of materials used to produce fentanyl.

Still, even as Mr. Biden has sought to steady relations, the fierce competition between the two countries was on vivid display during the APEC meeting in Lima.

China has courted Peru as part of a broader strategy to invest in smaller powers that feel neglected by the West. Earlier this week, Mr. Xi joined President Dina Boluarte of Peru to open a Chinese-funded port in a city 40 miles north of Lima.

Washington has warned that such projects could be used by the Chinese military in the future and potentially bring national security risks.

Mr. Biden has often cited his long and complicated relationship with Mr. Xi as evidence of his diplomatic skills. He often speaks of getting to know Mr. Xi when he was the vice president in the administration of President Barack Obama.

After returning to the White House from China in 2011, Mr. Biden told his aides that “I think we’ve got our hands full with this guy.”

But soon, the relationship with Mr. Xi will no longer be Mr. Biden’s responsibility to manage.

Zixu Wang contributed research from Hong Kong.

Trump Builds His Administration

As his team ramps up the transition process, President-elect Donald Trump says his administration will radically reshape the federal government.

• White House Press Secretary: Trump announced that he had chosen Karoline Leavitt, who worked in his administration and was his campaign’s press secretary, to be his White House press secretary.
• Justice Department: Trump intends to nominate three members of his criminal defense team to senior roles at the department, raising further concerns about politicization of the department.
• Health and Human Services: Trump said he would nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy opposes fluoride in water, promotes unproven Covid therapies and has threatened to prosecute medical journals.
• Immigration: Trump’s plans to expel noncitizens on a mass scale are likely to raise prices on goods and services and lower employment rates for U.S. workers, many economists say.
• Skirting the Senate: Trump’s demand that Senate Republicans surrender their role in vetting his nominees poses an early test of whether his second term will be more radical than his first.