U.S.–China Talks: What Does Each Side Want? | China In Focus

A high-level summit unfolding in San Francisco featuring a rare encounter between President Biden and a leader he has openly labeled a dictator. Get back on a normal course of corresponding. What would a successful meeting look like for the U.S. and China? Despite the talks, a report from Congress says times between Washington and Beijing are getting worse. We look at why. How damaging is Beijing's campaign of economic coercion? A Biden official is urging countries around the globe to act. And tickets priced at a whopping $40,000. Sold to dine at the same table as the head of the Chinese Communist Party. Make sure to check for your wallet and your phone on the way out. What do you think of the dinner? Let us know below and subscribe if you haven't already. Welcome to China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. A simple sit down is about to make headlines. The past year saw U.S.-China tensions hit a new high. Now the two are finally back to talking. A rare face-to-face meeting between President Biden and Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping is kicking off Wednesday. The high-stakes talks are happening on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco. The key topics. First, military communication. Biden has emphasized the need to re-establish military-to-military contact, critical if a crisis were to break out. To get back on a normal course of corresponding. The Chinese have basically severed those communication links. President Biden would like to re-establish them. Beijing cut ties in August last year after former Speaker Nancy Pelosi made a visit to Taiwan. The self-ruled island is another point of contention. Ahead of the talks, Beijing again announced the U.S. decision to give military aid to the island. Also on the meeting's agenda, China's role in the Israel-Hamas war and the conflict in Ukraine. Russian President Putin and Xi met in Beijing last month, where they called for close foreign policy coordination. China's ties to Iran are also in the spotlight after its terrorist proxies stepped up attacks on U.S. troops in the Middle East. Other expected topics include human rights, the South China Sea, climate and trade. Amid a troubled Chinese economy, market issues are high on Beijing's agenda. Analysts say Beijing may hope to persuade Biden to ease up on tariffs and export controls for advanced computer chips. To sweeten the deal, Beijing appears to be extending friendly gestures toward Washington. From eyeing aircraft purchases from Boeing to buying up over three million tons of U.S. soya beans. China's state media have also toned down their negative coverage of the U.S. On top of that, a CNN report says Chinese officials went all out planning every detail for Xi's sit-down with Biden. They made sure everything from where Xi would sit to what he'd see out the window would be carefully curated. So with all these dynamics in play, can we actually expect concrete actions? The issues that we have with China are not things that can really be resolved with negotiation. Economic and national security analyst Antonio Graceffo adds he doesn't expect a major breakthrough from the meeting. Taiwan doesn't want to be gobbled up by China. We're not going to abandon Taiwan. Israel doesn't want to be killed by Hamas. We're not going to abandon Israel. So I don't know what major breakthroughs could really come from this. Despite those deadlocks, experts say the U.S. and China still need the meeting to reestablish a minimum of trust. For a closer look at the Biden-Xi meeting and the high-stakes summit, here's NTD White House correspondent Iris Tao reporting from the APEC summit in San Francisco. So in a very short while, President Biden will hold a solo press conference right here at the Philillia State right here in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is exactly where the U.S. meeting with CCP officials was taking place earlier today. And the White House told us this morning that President Biden will no doubt bring up human rights issues with China candidly. And President Biden said during the meeting this morning that he's trying to responsibly manage the competition between U.S. and China so that it does not veer into conflict. However, he also said this on Tuesday. Watch. But I'm not going to continue to sustain the support for positions where if we want to invest in China, we have to turn over all our trade secrets. And today's meeting also comes as concerns are mounting over China's aggression, especially after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon earlier this year, of course, as the FBI Director Christopher Wray has been warning about a rise in Chinese espionage activities. And while the U.S. is trying to maintain and perhaps improve the relationship with China, the U.S.-China Security and Economic Commission today published a report saying that actually there's been doubts about U.S.-China diplomacy, as China has been using its influence around the world, trying to manipulate political and economic activities in different countries. It asked that China has been only getting more aggressive and its approach has been even more sophisticated. Meanwhile, a senior Biden administration official also told me last night that a very concerning feature of Chinese diplomacy is its economic coercion toward other countries. He says that U.S. allies and the U.S. need to work together to counter that. And meanwhile, Republicans have been calling on the Biden administration to be tougher on China. Here's Mitch McConnell on the floor today. Watch. The Biden administration has too often met this historic moment with weakness and naivete time and time again and has sacrificed competition on the altar of green climate policy. And that's as Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis published an op-ed on China on the New York Post on Tuesday. He says that both parties of the U.S. are mistakenly treating China as a friendly competitor, while in fact, he says, is a hostile Marxist regime that if we allow them to continue doing what they're doing, it's going to exploit our openness and steal more of our technology. On the sidelines of the high stakes meeting, an advisory body in Washington is warning of a heightening U.S.-China rivalry. That's despite rounds of renewed diplomatic talks in the last year. According to a report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, Beijing has yet to make any moves to better relations. Instead, the regime is mobilizing all resources to build up its military capacity, from missiles to A.I., undersea warfare and space technology. The report says the new normal between the two superpowers will be a, quote, continuing long-term strategic and systematic competition. If China forges ahead with its global ambitions, the commission warns it could change the global power dynamic. Aside from the warnings, the report also finds that China is facing its worst economic crisis in decades. To manage the U.S.'s competitive edge, the commission is calling on Congress to ramp up due diligence on foreign investments and export controls. How much does it cost to dine with Chinese Communist regime head Xi Jinping? With him attending the APEC summit in California, two U.S. business associations have marked up the price, one seat for $40,000. The chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP calls it unconscionable that American companies would pay to attend. Here's Chairman Mike Gallagher. It's a welcome dinner in honor of CCP officials who are at this moment, in our State Department's own words, conducting genocide against millions of innocent men, women and children in Xinjiang. So how does that dinner conversation go? Wow, this filet mignon is a little dry. How's your extrajudicial internment of over a million Uighur Muslims going? This Sauvignon Blanc is really nice. Congrats on completely crushing civil society in Hong Kong. Remember the willingness of the CCP to weaponize market access and supply chain vulnerabilities, along with a penchant for the theft of intellectual property. Make sure to check for your wallet and your phone on the way out. In the video posted on X, Gallagher called on financial institutions not to sign new deals with companies blacklisted by Washington. Those firms were found supporting the CCP's military buildup and human rights abuses. He warned that doing business with the regime carries risks for employees, investors and Americans' savings. In closing, he added, quote, 40,000 may buy you a meal with Xi, but it can't buy you a conscience. The tickets were sold by the U.S.-China Business Council and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. Worth noting, the $40,000 price tag bought a seat directly at Xi Jinping's table, while a smaller $2,000 purchase granted entry to the event and a seat at another table. The House panel has requested information on the individuals and companies that purchased the tickets and the association's actions regarding human rights violations in China. Allies are on President Biden's meeting with China's leader this week, but that's not all that's happening with U.S.-China talks. The U.S. defense chief is traveling to Asia, hoping to boost ties with American allies in the region. Perhaps to counter the growing influence of the Chinese Communist Party there. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with his counterparts from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, in Indonesia Wednesday. Some key players in the Indo-Pacific region aren't members of the group, but they will join the defense minister's meeting on Thursday, including the U.S., China, Japan, and South Korea. Taiwan is excluded from the bloc in any form, although it's a strong economical partner to the region. The reason? China doesn't allow it. What's more, Indonesia's defense minister listed the three hot spots for discussion at the meeting. Two of them are linked to Beijing. The South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, the Myanmar issue remain hot spots that can destabilize the region. In the South China Sea, China is accused of aggression against the Philippines, which has U.S. backing. And on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea has been launching missiles and sounding the war alarm for years. The country has China's backing. In this age of technology and connectivity, the threats we face have become increasingly complex and transnational. Our challenges respect no borders. Our commitment to multilateralism should also extend beyond our borders. And the U.S. is responding. Before his stop in Indonesia, Austin visited India and South Korea. Both are China's neighbors based on democratic values and traditional allies of the U.S. Last month, Austin reiterated America's ironclad commitment to defending Japan, including the Senkaku Islands. The land masses are just a few dozen miles from Taiwan. With Austin in Indonesia, U.S.-China military talks will be absent from the military dialogue. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's office had asked to meet with his Chinese counterpart. But Beijing has said it won't send any Chinese officials of appropriate rank to meet with Austin to the summit. China has not yet replaced former Defense Minister Li Shanfu. He was ousted last month after disappearing from the public eye for two months. Noting that information, Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Pat Ryder said Washington isn't planning for the secretary to sit down for a meeting with any PRC officials at this year's gathering. PRC is short for People's Republic of China, the country's formal name. Military tensions between Beijing and Washington are still strained, despite calls for a thaw. China cut off military communication with the U.S. After then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. A senior Biden administration official is calling for countries to work together in the face of Beijing's economic coercion. During a press briefing, the official explained that the Chinese Communist Party has used the tactic in various regions, causing disruption and concern among nations. Adding, quote, globally, we've seen it in Europe, we've seen it in Australia, we've seen it in the Philippines, Japan at various points. Asked if Biden would bring up the subject, the official referenced the G7 summit in Japan where the issue was addressed in May. Are U.S. export curbs that target Chinese chipmakers actually working? A new government report finds that Chinese companies are still buying U.S. chipmaking gear to make the advanced tech. Let's dive in. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released its annual report. It takes aim at the Biden administration's export curbs announced in 2022. The rules seek to bar Chinese chipmakers from getting U.S. chipmaking tools if they would be used to manufacture advanced chips. Despite that, the report finds that impostors can often buy the equipment if they claim it's being used on an older production line. And with the lack of inspections, it's hard to verify the equipment is not being used to produce more advanced chips. The finding comes as the U.S. scrambles to figure out how Chinese telecom giant Huawei was able to produce an advanced seven nanometer chip to power a smartphone model. Heading to the Asia-Pacific region, we have more updates from Taiwan and Australia. Taiwan's presidential election is slated for early next year. The two main opposition parties have announced a joint presidential ticket for the election in January. The agreement would bring together the presidential candidate for the Nationalist Party and the independent Taiwan People's Party candidate. Until now, both of them have trailed in polls behind frontrunner William Lai. Lai represents the Democratic Progressive Party and currently serves as Taiwan's vice president. Unlike Lai, the opposition parties have vowed to renew talks with the Chinese communist regime. Heading down under, Australia's nuclear submarine program is a likely target of state-sponsored cyber espionage. That's the message from the country's digital spy agency Wednesday. The Australian authority just released its latest annual online threat assessment. The report highlights China's role in backing a group of hackers known as Volt Typhoon. The group has targeted U.S. critical infrastructure, including military facilities in Guam. Well, China, we have done an attribution of China, which we did in May of this year. There are a number of state actors out there which have also at times engaged in activity. So what we're making sure that we do is that we are as robust as we can be in terms of the defense of our own critical infrastructure. The report warns that the same techniques could be used against Australian infrastructure to gather information or disrupt activities. A major potential target is Australia's cooperation with the U.S. and U.K. to develop nuclear submarines for the Australian Navy. That's all for today's China In Focus on YouTube. We're now sharing a shortened version of our program here after being demonetized for more than two years. Last month, YouTube removed our demonetization status, but reimposed it within days. If you'd like to support us, subscribe to our partner platform, Epic TV, where you can watch our full episodes or consider donating. Find us at DonorBox.org China-In-Focus. Here's what to look out for in our second half. A mass production of humanoid robots taking shape in the next two years. China has unveiled plans to create the bots with its own technology. According to the blueprint, the products will disrupt the market as the computers, smartphones and electric vehicles that came before them. How does this new technology shape the future competition between Washington and Beijing? And could Beijing use the technology to fight its wars? To find out more, we sat down with Casey Fleming, Chief Executive Officer of Black Ops Partners Corp. Thanks for watching China In Focus. I'm Tiffany Meyer. See you tomorrow.