Biden, Xi Hold In-Person Talks at APEC Forum

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at U.S.-China talks at APEC, an Israeli raid on Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital, and a major blow to the U.K.’s immigration agenda.

Face-to-Face

Nearly a year’s worth of high-level negotiations finally culminated in face-to-face talks between U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday. The two world leaders met at Filoli estate, a country house museum outside of San Francisco, as part of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. This was their first in-person meeting since last November’s G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, and Xi’s first visit to the United States in six years.

Ahead of Wednesday’s dialogue, Biden stressed that his administration’s primary objective was to restore communication channels with China’s military. Beijing severed ties in August 2022 following then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan. Months of tense relations only worsened after U.S. aircraft shot down a Chinese spy balloon off the coast of South Carolina in February.

“We’re not trying to decouple from China,” Biden said. “What we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better.”

To accomplish this, both sides focused on smaller, tangible wins that wouldn’t cost them much domestic support. For China, that meant giving in to U.S. fentanyl prohibition demands. Top officials hinted on Tuesday that Washington and Beijing were close to finalizing a deal that would crack down on the export of chemicals used to make the illicit drug. This would be a major success for Biden, who campaigned on addressing the United States’ opioid crisis.

The United States and China also agreed on Tuesday to increase renewable energy use to displace fossil fuels, a crucial step forward ahead of the United Nations climate change conference in Dubai that will begin later this month. Until now, China’s reduction targets only measured carbon dioxide. This week’s deal will force both nations to now consider all greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, when measuring reduction efforts.

Artificial intelligence also garnered much conversation, with Xi and Biden working to establish a forum that would discuss how to make sure AI programs do not influence nuclear command and control. But China appeared wary about pledging any greater collaboration efforts, especially as Washington continues to deny Beijing the semiconductor chips needed to develop AI systems.

Not every discussion point was successful, though. Xi remained steadfast against U.S. efforts to defend Taiwan. China’s military posturing has only worsened in recent weeks as the Taiwanese prepare to elect a new president in January, and U.S. officials said another key item on Biden’s agenda for his meeting with Xi was to warn the Chinese president against Beijing interfering in that election. Xi ignored Biden’s calls to address human rights abuses against China’s Uyghur and Tibetan populations. And Washington and Beijing continued to butt heads over key conflicts, with China refusing to end its support for Russia in its war against Ukraine and the United States failing to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Today’s Most Read

• The West’s Incoherent Critique of Israel’s Gaza Strategy by Raphael S. Cohen
• What to Expect From the Xi-Biden Meeting by Lili Pike
• Biden Owns the Israel-Palestine Conflict Now by Aaron David Miller

What We’re Following

Al-Shifa raid. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raided Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, on Wednesday in what it described as a “precise and targeted operation against Hamas.” Israel has accused Hamas militants of operating a command center under the medical complex and using the thousands of people still trapped inside as human shields. Hamas denies these allegations and has accused Israeli forces of targeting civilians and restricting the hospital’s access to lifesaving supplies, such as fuel and oxygen. A senior Israeli military official told the New York Times that IDF troops interrogated people inside the hospital and found weapons, and the IDF posted a video to social media purporting to show small weapons caches and military gear found inside an MRI facility in the complex.

Meanwhile, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said on Wednesday that it had received its first fuel shipment into Gaza since war broke out on Oct. 7. But the fuel delivery is only to be used to transport goods across Egypt’s Rafah border crossing, not to give to hospitals and schools sheltering Palestinians. Israeli officials allege that Hamas hoards fuel supplies earmarked for humanitarian purposes to use for rocket attacks.

Legislative blow. The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled against a government plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, agreeing unanimously that it was not a safe third country for refugees. First announced in April 2022, the plan would transfer thousands of people who illegally entered the U.K. to East Africa in a bid to deter migrants from crossing the English Channel. But legal challenges have marred the proposal since its inception, and no one has yet been deported under it.

Supreme Court President Robert Reed said the five judges agreed that there were “substantial grounds for believing that asylum-seekers sent to Rwanda would be at real risk of refoulement”—that is, that they could be sent back to their home countries, where they could be at risk of mistreatment. That would be a breach of several international treaties, including the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Reed said.

The court’s decision marks a major setback for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s floundering immigration policies at a time when public support for his Conservative Party is hitting new lows. However, Sunak suggested to lawmakers that he might consider leaving the ECHR and other relevant treaties. “If it becomes clear that our domestic legal frameworks or international conventions are still frustrating plans at that point, I am prepared to change our laws and revisit those international relationships,” Sunak told Parliament.

New African coup fears. South Sudanese President Salva Kiir fired the country’s police chief, Gen. Majak Akec Balok, on Tuesday following rumors of an attempted coup. Kiir did not specify why Balok was let go, but the decision came just days after state officials detained at least 27 officers with the country’s National Security Service and presidential guard, known as the Tiger Battalion, on suspicion of fomenting an uprising.

Balok was first appointed police chief in 2018 and will be replaced by Lt. Gen. Atem Marol Biar. The shake-up comes amid accusations that South Sudanese fighters have aligned with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces in the neighboring nation’s civil war. Kiir has repeatedly denied these claims.

Odds and Ends

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni personally opened a J.R.R. Tolkien exhibit at Rome’s National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art on Wednesday. But although Meloni has long had a passion for the works of the Lord of the Rings author, as documented by her experiences dressing up as a hobbit during her time as a youth activist and posing with a Gandalf statue for a magazine photoshoot, her participation at the event has much more to do with emphasizing her far-right party’s growing interest in shaping the country’s culture, according to the Guardian’s Philip Oltermann. “In Middle-earth lore, some Italian neofascists see an existential struggle between the forces of tradition and modernity that resembles their own ideology,” Oltermann wrote. Italy’s Culture Ministry is funding the exhibition, which features manuscripts, letters, memorabilia, and works of art inspired by Tolkien. It will be on display in Rome until Feb. 11, 2024, before touring other Italian cities.