The call started at 8:33 am. EDT and ended at 10:50 A.M. EDT, according to the White House. It came as Biden aims to find new ways to work with the rising global power, as well as strategies to limit China’s influence around the world. Differing perspectives on global health, economic policy and human rights have long tested the relationship – with China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine adding further tension. “The two heads of state had in-depth communication and exchanges on China-US relations and matters of mutual interest,” China Central Television said on its website. The latest pressure point was a possible visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the democratically self-governing island that receives informal defense support from the US but which China considers part of its territory. Beijing has said it would view such a trip as a provocation, a threat that US officials are taking with increased seriousness in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “If the US insists on going its own way and questioning China’s results, it will certainly be met with strong responses,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, told reporters earlier this week. “All subsequent consequences will be borne by the US” Pelosi would be the highest-ranking US elected official to travel to Taiwan since Republican Newt Gingrich visited the island in 1997 when he was speaker of the House. Biden last week told reporters that US military officials believed it was “not a good idea” for the speaker to visit the island at this time. John Kirby, a US national security spokesman, said on Wednesday that it was important for Biden and Xi to be in regular contact with the base. “The president wants to make sure the lines of communication with President Xi stay open because they have to,” Kirby told reporters during a White House briefing. “There are issues on which we can work with China and there are issues on which there is obviously friction and tension.” Biden and Xi last spoke in March, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “This is one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world today, with ramifications far beyond the two individual countries,” Kirby said. The debate comes as Biden has moved to shift U.S. reliance on Chinese manufacturing, including passing legislation in the Senate on Wednesday to encourage semiconductor companies to build more high-tech factories in the U.S. Biden wants to guide global democracies to support infrastructure investment in low- and middle-income nations as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to boost China’s trade with other global markets. Kirby listed a number of areas of US-China friction that he said would be part of the conversation, including “tensions over Taiwan, tensions over … China’s aggressive behavior in the Indo-Pacific outside of Taiwan, tensions in economic relationship’ and about China’s reaction to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Biden, who has maintained Trump-era tariffs on many Chinese goods in order to maintain leverage over Beijing, is considering whether to ease at least some of them in a move to ease the impact of soaring inflation on American households. US officials have also criticized China’s “zero COVID-19” mass testing and lockdown policy in an effort to limit the spread of COVID-19 on its territory, calling it misguided and worried it will further slow global economic growth. Other pressure points include China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, whom the US has declared a genocide, their militarization of the South China Sea and its global campaign of economic and political espionage.
