US PRESIDENT JOE Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed in talks today that nuclear weapons should never be used, including in Ukraine, the White House said.

“President Biden and President Xi reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” it said in a statement.

The pair held their first face-to-face talks since Biden took office on the sidelines of a G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia that is expected to be dominated by the war in Ukraine.

The three-hour meeting between Biden and Xi was aimed at stopping the two countries’ simmering rivalry from spilling over into conflict.

The pair shook hands at the start of the meeting, with Biden saying the superpowers shared the responsibility to show the world that they can “manage our differences, prevent competition from becoming conflict”.

The White House said he had told Xi that Washington would “continue to compete vigorously” with China, but “this competition should not veer into conflict”.

Biden raised objections to China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan,” the White House said after three hours of talks aimed at avoiding conflict between the rival superpowers.

And he told Xi the world should encourage North Korea to act “responsibly”, after a record-breaking series of missile launches by Pyongyang and growing fears of a new nuclear test.

Chinese media reported that Xi told Biden that the world is “big enough” for the US and for both to prosper and that the two countries “share more, not less” common interests. 

UK-China

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also said today that he hopes to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit. 

unak, who only took office three weeks ago, is due to hold formal bilateral meetings with US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Japan and Australia.

Britain’s first-ever premier of Indian descent will also meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“President Xi is here and, like all the other leaders, hopefully I will have a chance to talk to him,” he told UK broadcasters travelling with him.

Sunak added he was eager to discuss “how we can fix the global economy” at the summit, as well as “unequivocally condemn Russia’s hostile and illegal war” in Ukraine.

He acknowledged the grouping of the top 20 world economies was “very different” from the Western-led G7, following reports the G20 will not issue a final joint statement amid divisions over Russia.

“The G20 is a very different forum to the G7,” Sunak said, calling the latter “a group of like-minded liberal democracies with similar values”.

“But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be engaged in it. We should make our voices heard and constructively work with people where we can.”

© – AFP 2022