Xi warns Biden not to ‘play with fire’ over Taiwan

US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping spent more than two hours on Thursday talking through the future of their complicated relationship, with the flashpoint of Taiwan once again emerging as a key point of tension.

According to an outline of the call released by Beijing, Xi emphasised China’s claim over the island, which has governed itself for decades.

“Those who play with fire will perish by it,” said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “It is hoped that the US will be clear-eyed about this.”

The White House released its own description of the conversation about Taiwan, saying that Biden “underscored that the United States policy has not changed and that the United States strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait”.

The goal of the call, which began at 8.33am EDT and ended at 10.50am, was to “responsibly manage our differences and work together where our interests align”, the White House said.

Later, a senior official revealed that Biden and Xi were exploring the idea of meeting in person soon.

As usual, China left no doubt that it blames the US for the deteriorating relationship between the two countries.

“President Xi underscored that to approach and define China-US relations in terms of strategic competition and view China as the primary rival and the most serious long-term challenge would be misperceiving China-US relations and misreading China’s development, and would mislead the people of the two countries and the international community,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

The call took place as Biden aims to find new ways to work with China and contain its influence around the world. Differing perspectives on global health, economic policy and human rights have long tested the relationship — with China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine adding further strain.

The latest pressure point has been House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan, which has a democratic government and receives informal defensive support from the U.S., but which China considers part of its territory. Beijing has said it would view such a trip as a provocation, a threat US officials are taking with heightened seriousness in light of Russia’s incursion into Ukraine.

“If the US insists on going its own way and challenging China’s bottom line, it will surely be met with forceful responses,” Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters earlier this week. “All ensuing consequences shall be borne by the US.”

Pelosi would be the highest-ranking US elected official to travel to Taiwan since Republican Newt Gingrich visited the island in 1997 when he was House speaker. Biden last week told reporters that US military officials believed it was “not a good idea” for the speaker to visit the island at the moment.

John Kirby, a US national security spokesman, said on Wednesday that it was important for Biden and Xi to regularly touch base.

“The president wants to make sure that the lines of communication with President Xi remain open because they need to,” Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing. “There are issues where we can cooperate with China on, and there are issues where obviously there are friction and tension.”

Biden and Xi last spoke in March, shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“This is one of the most consequential bilateral relationships in the world today, with ramifications well beyond both individual countries,” Kirby said.

Biden has moved to shift US reliance off Chinese manufacturing, including Senate passage Wednesday of legislation to encourage semiconductor companies to build more high-tech plants in the US Biden wants to marshal global democracies to support infrastructure investments in low- and middle-income nations as an alternative to China’s “Belt and Road Initiative”, which aims to boost China trade with other global markets.

Biden has kept in place Trump-era tariffs on many Chinese-manufactured goods in order to maintain leverage over Beijing. But he is weighing whether to ease at least some of them to lessen the impact of soaring inflation on American households.

US officials have also criticized China’s “zero-Covid” policy of mass testing and lockdowns in an effort to contain the spread of Covid-19 in its territory, labeling it misguided and fretting that it will further slow global economic growth.

Other points of strain include China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims, which the US has declared a genocide, its militarisation in the South China Sea and its global campaign of economic and political espionage