Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday that US and China relations are at a crossroads and that both need to “make new decisions” that might lead to stable relations and “joint success and prosperity.”
He stated this while giving a warm to former US top diplomat Henry Kissinger.
The 100-year-old Kissinger is revered in China for having engineered the opening of relations between the ruling Communist Party and Washington under former President Richard Nixon during the Cold War in the early 1970s but the US has stressed that he is visiting in his capacity as a private citizen.
Xi met with Kissinger in the more relaxed setting of Beijing’s park-like Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, with Chinese senior diplomat Wang Yi also in attendance.
According to the Chinese ministry, the two sides also discussed the Ukrainian conflict, in which China has mostly supported Moscow, as well as artificial intelligence and other economic matters.
China broke off many contacts with the Biden administration last August, including over climate issues, to show its anger with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.
China claims the island as its own territory, to be brought under its control by force if necessary, threatening to draw the U.S. into a major conflict in a region crucial to the global economy.
