U.S. President Joe Biden expects chilly relations with China to improve “very soon” after tensions earlier this year over the U.S. shooting down a Chinese hot air balloon that flew over important military installations, Biden said in comments after the three-day summit ended. G7 leaders. We should have an open hotline.
Washington’s decision in February to shoot down a balloon it suspected was being used to spy on the United States sparked a diplomatic spat between the world’s two largest economies.
And after relations between Beijing and Washington recently cooled after the latter shot down a Chinese balloon suspected of espionage, US President Joe Biden said yesterday that relations between the two countries should “improve very soon.”
Biden said relations had deteriorated in the months following his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit on the Indonesian island of Bali in November. Washington’s decision in February to shoot down a balloon it suspected was being used to spy on the United States sparked a diplomatic spat between the world’s two largest economies.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s visit to Beijing, which was seen as an opportunity to improve relations, was canceled due to the incident. And on Sunday, during a press conference after the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Biden was asked why the hotline that had been planned between the US and China was not working.
Biden replied: “You are right, we should have an open hotline. At the Bali conference, this is exactly what we agreed with President Xi.