Biden Opens Direct Line to Xi Amid Taiwan Tensions

The world became a little bit safer this week, especially for anyone living in or near the Asia-Pacific, a part of the world increasingly anxious about a confrontation between China and the US.

The virtual meeting between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, while hardly producing any groundbreaking agreements, got the two most powerful men in the world, leaders of the two most powerful nations and adversaries, talking to each other.

The likelihood of an imminent confrontation over Taiwan, which Beijing sees as a wayward province that must be reincorporated into the mainland, must be less than it was a week ago, if only very marginally.

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“The officials in Anchorage had uncertain proximity to Xi himself, in a system that’s moved quite decidedly from collective rule to one-man rule,” says Richard Fontaine, director of the Centre for New American Security, a leading Washington think tank...“The relationship is the same after the call as it was before; what’s different is the potential to have some kind of talks on guardrails,” Fontaine says. “But my understanding is none of that actual talking took place – it was talking about talking.”

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