Back in November, before the latest downward spiral in U.S.-China ties, Chinese President Xi Jinping cast himself as a statesman in a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden.
Saying both nations need “a responsibility for history,” Xi appeared to play ball with U.S. calls to “compete vigorously” with China while establishing “guardrails” to avoid conflict. After speaking with Biden for more than three hours in Indonesia, Xi said “competition should be about learning from each other” and referred to agreements around Taiwan as “the most important guardrail.”
This week, as top Chinese officials gathered for the National People’s Congress, Xi stopped playing nice. On Monday, he called on the private sector to help overcome “comprehensive containment and suppression by Western countries led by the U.S.” — unusually direct criticism of his largest trading partner.
