On Monday President Biden and Xi Jinping met for nearly three hours in Bali, where, facing each other for the first time as top leaders, they agreed to restart talks between their countries as part of international climate negotiations, a breakthrough in the effort to avert catastrophic global warming.
Talks between China and the United States over climate had been frozen for months, amid rising tensions between the two countries over trade, Taiwan and a host of security issues. China suspended all cooperation with the United States, including around climate change, in August as retaliation for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.
The announcement reverberated nearly 6,000 miles away in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, where delegates and activists at the United Nations climate conference, known as COP27, were hoping for news that could spur more aggressive climate action from countries around the world.
“This is good news for the climate talks and for climate action,” said Nathaniel Keohane, the president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, an environmental group based in Washington.
Mr. Biden seemed to push Mr. Xi on climate cooperation in his opening remarks in Bali before the bilateral meeting at the Chinese delegation’s hotel.
“The world expects, I believe, China and the United States to play key roles in addressing global challenges, from climate changes to food insecurity, and to — for us to be able to work together,” Mr. Biden said. “The United States stands ready to do just that — work with you — if that’s what you desire.”
But not everything that emerged from the XI Jinping-Joe Biden talks was good news.
On the issue of Taiwan, the future remains uncertain. Xi said that Taiwanese independence was as incompatible to peace and stability as “fire and water.” And while Biden noted that an invasion of Taiwan did not appear to be “imminent,” China has long sought reunification with the island.
If China invades, will Taiwan be prepared to fight—and for how long would its military, which some experts believe is rooted in outdated strategy from the nineteen-eighties, be able to hold off China? Crucially, will the U.S. intervene? These questions remain of the greatest concern to interested observers with no resolution in sight.
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