China Declares Victory at Xi-Biden Summit

Chinese state media portrayed Monday’s meeting between dictator Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, as an unreserved triumph for Xi.

According to these reports, Xi explained China’s priorities and perspectives on matters such as global trade and Taiwan, and Biden acquiesced to each one. The international community was supposedly reassured, the reports continued, by Biden’s acceptance of Xi’s leadership role, putting an end to years of the United States unfairly and unreasonably making trouble for Beijing.

China’s state-run Global Times described the meeting as Biden listening raptly while Xi “profoundly” laid out the mutual interests between the two world powers, taking the first step to repair a relationship abused by the United States:

Quite a few public opinions have noticed that the venue for this meeting is the Chinese delegation’s residence in Bali, and the hotel where the US delegation is staying is about 10 minutes’ drive away. Furthermore, this meeting was proposed by the US. In fact, it is not difficult to find that each time the continuous deterioration of China-US relations happens, it is due to the unilateral provocation by the US.

As the saying goes, “whoever starts the trouble should end it.” Only if the US takes the right attitude and practical actions can China-US relations return to the right track. During the meeting, US President Biden expanded the previous “Five Noes” commitment made by the US leadership (i.e. to not seek a new Cold War; to not seek to change China’s system; that the revitalization of its alliances won’t be against China; to not support “Taiwan independence”; to not look for conflict with China) and proposed that the US respects China’s system, and does not seek to change it; the US does not seek a new Cold War, does not seek to revitalize alliances against China, does not support “Taiwan independence,” does not support “two Chinas” or “one China, one Taiwan,” and has no intention to have a conflict with China; the US side has no intention to seek “decoupling” from China, to halt China’s economic development, or to contain China. 

We hope that the US can implement President Biden’s commitment instead of always saying one thing and doing another. This is both about sincerity and integrity.

In sum, the Global Times saw Biden handing a total victory to Xi on China’s narrative of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, putting an end to all talk of “decoupling” and tacitly accepting China’s contention that the true origins of the Wuhan coronavirus can never be traced.

“China maintains continuity and stability in its US policy, and has always called on the US to meet China halfway, which is not only in the fundamental interests of the two countries and the two peoples, but also the common expectation of the international community,” the Global Times asserted.

The Global Times lauded Xi for teaching Biden that tension between China and the United States “is not in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples, and is not what the international community expects.”

“Such remarks and the summit itself inject a certain degree of positivity into bilateral relations, which have entered a downward spiral due to the U.S.’ ever-widening containment strategy against China, and especially after the provocative visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to the island of Taiwan,” the Global Times purred, hitting another of China’s favorite talking points.

China launched a massive temper tantrum of aggressive military drills after Pelosi visited Taiwan, but constantly blames all of the instability created by its antics on the United States for daring to provoke it. 

The Global Times implied the White House account of Biden standing up to Xi on a few key points might not be entirely accurate, and even if it was, Biden was just half-heartedly doubling down on past American mistakes:

According to the readout released by the White House, Biden remained tough on topics that are China’s internal affairs, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Xizang (Tibet). Chinese analysts said the US has failed to realize that it was its unilateral, arrogant and hostile strategy against China that put bilateral ties in risk of spiraling out of control and toward direct conflict, and in the future, the risk of confrontation between the two great powers will still exist if the US refuses to change its arrogant attitude and hostile strategy. 

China-US relations should not be a zero-sum game where one side out-competes or thrives at the expense of the other, Xi said. The successes of China and the US are opportunities, not challenges, for each other. The world is big enough for the two countries to develop themselves and prosper together, he added.

The Global Times sneered at the Biden White House for talking about building “guardrails” around relations between the U.S. and China, insisting that China’s “red lines” around Taiwan are far more relevant to the future.

Yet another Global Times editorial on Monday continued beating the Taiwan horse, which might be the one issue where Xi did not feel entirely comfortable with Biden’s promises since Xi’s state media seems to be laying down hundreds of markers to remind future U.S. policymakers that Biden accepted Beijing’s “One China” view of Taiwan as a frisky province that will inevitably return to the motherland.

The third editorial highlighted Xi lecturing Biden to stop comparing U.S. democracy with China’s one-party authoritarianism:

Xi pointed out the so-called “democracy versus authoritarianism” narrative is not the defining feature of today’s world, still less does it represent the trend of the times.

“Just as the US has American-style democracy, China has Chinese-style democracy. Both fit their respective national conditions”, Xi said, adding that the whole-process people’s democracy practiced in China is based on the country’s reality, history and culture and it reflects people’s will.

“We take great pride in it. No country has a perfect democratic system, and there is always a need for development and improvement. The specific differences between the two sides can be worked out through discussion, but only on the precondition of equality,” Xi added.

The sum of these Chinese state media accounts unsurprisingly pushes China’s narrative that everyone else is wrong for criticizing it, so all turbulence in Chinese relations is caused by arrogant or ignorant foreign leaders who fail to understand China’s definition of phrases like “transparency,” “democracy,” or “human rights.”