The White House announced on Wednesday that the president of the United States had his first telephone conversation with Chinese envoy Xi Jinping, in which he addressed economic issues and human rights abuses.
In the call, three weeks after taking office, Joe Biden expressed “deep concern” over Beijing’s “unjust and forced” economic practices, repression in Hong Kong, and “human rights violations” in Xinjiang, where minorities live. Muslim Uyghur, as well as activities on Taiwan.
The White House said the two leaders talked about the Govt-19 epidemic and the “common challenges” that represent global health care and climate change.
Last year, Beijing imposed national security legislation in Hong Kong’s semi-autonomous region, and since then, several pro-democracy activists and defenders have been detained. The Diploma punishes misconduct, separatism, terrorism and collusion with foreign powers with penalties, including imprisonment.
According to observers, more than a million Uyghurs are being held in political re-education camps in Xianjiang.
Beijing rejects the term “camps” and claims that they are vocational training centers that are designed to provide jobs for people, thus preventing them from religious extremism.
China and Taiwan have been living as two autonomous regions since 1949, when the former Chinese nationalist government took refuge on the island after its defeat in the civil war against the Communists.
Taiwan, which calls itself the Republic of China, has become a democracy with a strong civil society, but considers part of the island of Beijing as its territory and threatens to reunite.
Beijing criticizes any official relationship between foreign countries and Taipei, which it considers to support Taiwan’s separatism.
The United States is the island’s largest military supporter of Chinese threats and advocates for Taiwan’s participation in meetings of international organizations.
The position of the new US president is highly anticipated in confronting Sino-US relations, as the first two world powers play different positions.
On the one hand, if Biden had expressed a desire not to follow Donald Trump’s foreign policy, it would have been one of the rare documents that could have maintained a certain continuity with his predecessors.
In an interview aired Sunday on the CBS television channel, Joe Biden warned that the rivalry between the United States and China was “intense rivalry”, while assuring that he wanted to avoid a “conflict” between the two countries.