Politics

Biden to face Xi feeling ‘stronger’ after US midterms

Phnom Penh, Nov 13 (EFE).- The United States president Joe Biden said Sunday that he faces the meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, feeling “stronger” after learning that his party will maintain control of the Senate after the mid-term elections.

“I know I’m coming in stronger,” the US president, who is in Cambodia for the East Asia Summit, told reporters.

Biden appeared before the press by surprise after all the big US media outlets projected that Democrat Senator Catherine Cortez Masto will be reelected in Nevada, giving the majority to the Democratic Party in the upper house.

“I feel good and I’m looking forward to the next couple years,” Biden said when asked about his party’s victory in the Senate.

He congratulated Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and considered that the mid-term elections held on Tuesday have left lessons for the Republicans, who are “going to have to decide who they are.”

Republicans had predicted a seeping “red wave” in the polls, which never materialized.

Biden has repeatedly asked the old guard of the Republican Party to denounce the more extreme-right elements that identify with former president Donald Trump.

The US president is scheduled Sunday to take part in the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh with other leaders of the region to address the war in Ukraine, the energy and food crises and the rivalry between China and the US, among other issues.

The meeting is held within the framework of the annual summit of the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Biden will head to Bali, Indonesia, on Sunday afternoon for the G20 and meet with China’s leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines on Monday.

The US president said Washington and Beijing have “very little misunderstanding.”

“We just gotta figure out what the red lines are,” he added.

Biden also recalled that he shares a long personal relationship with Xi: they met more than a decade ago when they were vice presidents of their countries and shared multiple trips, meetings and dinners.

“I know Xi Jinping; he knows me,” said Biden, who assured that they have always had “straightforward discussions.”

The governments of China and US have been preparing the meeting between Biden and Xi for months. It will be the first in-person meeting held since the American’s arrival at the White House in January 2021, although they have had five phone calls in the last 20 months. EFE

grc-bpm/tw

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