WASHINGTON — Midway through a trip to Asia in 2013, Joe Biden settled in for a marathon session in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping, five-and-a-half hours of talks and dinner just steps from Tiananmen Square.
The newly minted Chinese leader warmly welcomed America’s then-vice president as “my old friend.” Biden waxed optimistic, telling Xi if they could “get this relationship right,” the possibilities were “limitless.”
A top aide later told reporters traveling with Biden they’d been “taken aback” by “the comfort that they have with one another, their willingness to really talk about the issues in a way that was personal, anecdotal, sort of building on each other’s analysis.” This was no rote exchange of prefabricated talking points, the aide insisted.
“I know that we often come back and tell you that,” the aide said with a laugh. “But I promise you, this time it’s true.”
Nov. 12, 202103:17
Eight years, two U.S. presidential elections and one global pandemic later, Biden and Xi meet virtually on Monday for perhaps their most consequential summit to date — one that comes as both leaders face complicated political situations at home and an escalating rivalry between superpowers that’s drawing comparisons to a new Cold War.
Whether the two leaders can defuse tensions during their first meeting since Biden became president will help answer a defining question of this decade: Can the U.S. and China vigorously compete without slipping into runaway conflict — economically, militarily or both?
“I think both sides have low expectations, and that’s appropriate,” said Anja Manuel, director of the Aspen Security Forum and a former State Department official. “What we’re going for here is not a total turnaround and suddenly becoming close friends. What we’re going for here is managing our differences and ensuring signals aren’t misread and there isn’t an accidental conflict.”
During the summit, Biden intends to bring up areas where U.S. and Chinese interests converge — such as climate change — while emphasizing to Xi that the U.S. expects him “to play by the rules of the road,” a senior Biden administration official said.
“We believe intense competition requires intense diplomacy,” the official said. “This is not about seeking specific deliverables or outcomes. This is about setting the terms of an effective competition where we are in the position to defend our values and interests and those of our allies and partners.”
Biden and Xi first met a decade ago, when both men served as vice president of their respective nations. Biden — who has long argued that even with foreign policy, all politics is personal — included more intimate face-to-face sessions during that first formal visit with his then-counterpart as part of an effort to not just ensure a smooth transition in the increasingly complicated and evolving bilateral relationship, but help him get the better measure of a man who was poised to assume the Chinese presidency within two years.
After a bilateral meeting and banquet dinner in Beijing, the two men jetted west to the Sichuan province for more informal sessions, sitting together for a private tea and mingling informally during a visit to a centuries-old irrigation project still supplying water to the region. Biden shot hoops alongside Xi as they visited a local high school, and later spoke to a class studying English.
“We both believe that our progress has to continue,” Biden told the class. “We welcome a rising China, not only for you, but for our own self-interest.”
Discussing his first impressions of Xi as he left China a decade ago, Biden said that “his highest priority is not to have any surprises in the relationship.”
Nov. 11, 202102:41
The election of Donald Trump as president in 2016 was one such surprise now shaping the dynamic between the two countries. But Biden has also closely tracked Xi’s attempts to consolidate power, and has recalibrated his approach to China accordingly.
Xi comes to Monday’s summit buoyed by an historic resolution adopted last week by the Chinese Communist Party elevating him to the level of that nation’s legendary revolutionary statesmen, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
On its face, the move appears to pave a path for Xi to rule for an unprecedented third term and perhaps even longer, while Biden is certain to face uncertain re-election prospects if he runs again in 2024. And Beijing has been flexing its muscles on the world stage, including through a military buildup that has alarmed U.S. security officials and increased air missions near disputed Taiwan.
Yet China experts have questioned whether Xi’s hold on power within China’s notoriously opaque political system is truly as solid as he projects. Xi hasn’t left his country in nearly two years, a fact that’s been much-noticed outside China and left Monday’s summit with Biden an all-virtual meeting.
Biden heads into the summit with his hand weakened by political troubles at home, with Americans skeptical about his leadership and even more downbeat about the U.S. economy. Still, in his first 11 months, Biden has managed to restore some global credibility the U.S. lost under Trump while shoring up an overlapping web of alliances aimed at constraining China’s international influence. Biden repeatedly noted China’s absence from a pair of major international summits that he’d attended in Italy and Scotland this month.
In Rome, he announced the easing of trade restrictions Trump put in place on the European Union. On Friday, as part of another multilateral summit with major Asian economies, the U.S. announced a similar move on Japan, a treaty ally and rival of Beijing. Both of those steps are designed in part to strengthen Washington’s hand by making the U.S. less reliant on Chinese imports.
As if to drive home the point that the U.S. has sharpened its competitive edge, just hours before he meets with Xi, Biden was set to sign into law his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, a hard-fought bipartisan compromise that could help the U.S. catch up with China’s enormous investments in its own highways, ports and railways.
It is Xi’s efforts to concentrate power that White House officials say makes Biden’s ability to leverage the personal rapport that began a decade ago so vital. A White House official said Sunday that an extended phone call between the two leaders in September was central to breaking a logjam between the respective leaders’ subordinates on a range of issues.
But ultimately, the official added, direct engagement is less about seeking to change Chinese policy than the world it inhabits.
“Rather, we’re trying to shape the international environment in a way that is favorable to us and our allies and partners,” the official said. “All of this really makes it all the more important to have the leaders sit down face to face and have a real discussion about the nature of the relationship, our terms and expectations for it, how to conduct the competition in a way that is competitive but doesn’t lead to conflict.”
Nov. 4, 202105:45
In recent years, deep concern about the threat from China and support for a tough U.S. stance have become a rare point of agreement between Democrats and Republicans. Ironically, that growing consensus may actually make it harder for Biden to get much done with Xi, China scholars said, leaving Biden with less room to maneuver without risking political backlash or claims he’s making concessions to an adversary.
“If the Biden administration feels vulnerable, you really can’t come back with, ‘we made a deal with the Chinese.’ That’s just such an obvious target you’re painting on yourself,” said Derek Scissors, a former Defense Department official who studies China at the American Enterprise Institute. “If people think he’s weak, I don’t see how he can announce anything that relies on us trusting China.”
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said in a speech last week that talk of a new Cold War was misplaced, arguing that the U.S. and China have “the choice not to do that” and should instead pursue what Biden has called “stiff competition.”
“China is going to be a factor in the international system for the foreseeable future. It’s not going anywhere,” Sullivan said. “And the United States is not going anywhere… So we’re going to have to learn how to deal with that reality.”
It was a realpolitik distillation of a point Biden himself had made a decade earlier when, after a 21-hour journey from Washington to Beijing in 2011, the vice president made an unexpected pit stop to watch Georgetown University’s men’s basketball team in an exhibition game against a professional Chinese team.
“Our relationship with China — it’s one of collaboration, but it’s also one of competition,” he told them in a pep talk before the exhibition basketball game. “I’m here to deepen my relationship with the vice president and keep that level of collaboration. But sometimes we collaborate, sometimes we compete.”
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
