China’s Xi delivered four ultimatums to Biden at Peru meeting, Beijing says

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned President Biden not to cross four “red lines” regarding Taiwan and the communist system as the outgoing president called for continued communications.

Mr. Xi, meeting with the U.S. president on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Lima, Peru, over the weekend, said that the four demands must not be “challenged or crossed,” the official Xinhua News Agency said.

“A new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won. Containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail,” Mr. Xi was quoted as saying.

During the meeting on Saturday, the Chinese leader said the issue of Taiwan, “democracy and human rights,” the Chinese communist system, and China’s development “rights” are the four red lines. Mr. Xi did not say what the consequences would be for the U.S. crossing the red lines.

Mr. Xi said U.S.-China differences are unavoidable, but that “one side should not undermine the core interests of the other, let alone seek conflict or confrontation,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. Mr. Xi also said Beijing hoped to maintain stable ties after the U.S. presidential election.

The White House made no mention of Mr. Xi’s demands in its readout statement of the Biden-Xi meeting, saying the third meeting between the two leaders was “candid [and] constructive” and likely the last for Mr. Biden who leaves office Jan. 20.

According to the Xinhua account, Mr. Xi told the president that neither China nor the U.S. “should seek to remodel the other according to one’s own will, suppress the other from the so-called ‘position of strength,’ or deprive the other of the legitimate right to development so as to maintain its leading status.”

Mr. Biden also told Mr. Xi that the U.S. does not seek to change China’s system and does not want a new Cold War.

It is unknown if the incoming Trump administration will continue that policy. Mr. Trump in the past has said he opposes policies of regime change but took a tough line on China in his first term in office.

In 2018, Mr. Trump authorized the CIA to conduct a clandestine influence campaign designed to turn people in China against the communist government, Reuters reported in March. Some analysts say anti-U.S. rhetoric and information operations — such as blaming the COVID-19 pandemic on the U.S. — are signs Mr. Xi’s ruling Communist Party and the Chinese government are already engaged in low-level information warfare.

Chinese officials began demanding in 2021 that the Biden administration promise not to target China’s communist system called “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” While Mr. Biden has rejected regime change as U.S. policy, China has made no secret of its goal of one day replacing the U.S. capitalist system with its brand of socialism as the global standard.

Chinese leaders in the past have said formal independence for Taiwan is a red line or core interest that would likely trigger military action against the democratic, self-ruled island. The other demands regarding Chinese “democracy and human rights” were not explained by state media.

Mr. Xi’s reference to Chinese development rights is an apparent reference to earlier complaints that tightened U.S. national security controls on exports of goods to China are designed to weaken and “contain” Chinese development.

The White House appeared to emphasize the positive aspects of the administration’s overall approach to China, one that it characterized as seeking both competition and cooperation. No breakthrough initiatives were achieved on such issues as climate change and arms control, however, during Mr. Biden’s term.

Relations were marked with tension over Chinese military threats to Taiwan, clashes over China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea and opposition to U.S. efforts to limit China’s access to high-technology microchips and other goods.

One outcome from the Lima talks saw Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi agree to maintain human control over nuclear weapons use decision-making processes. The agreement followed several U.S.-China official meetings on the risks of allowing artificial intelligence to control nuclear weapons use.

The agreement is largely symbolic since neither nation allows the other to examine or verify whether humans remain in the loop in the secretive process of launching missiles and bombers.

Russia maintains an automated system capable of launching nuclear weapons strikes without human intervention if key military or civilian leaders are killed, and some believe China is developing a similar automated launch system under its strategic shift to a launch-on-warning nuclear policy.

“The way that I would put this is you need to start somewhere, basic principles, and build from there when it comes to trying to develop a common basis for reducing nuclear risk,” White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters after the meeting. “And a good place to start is with the straightforward proposition that there should be human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.”

After both leaders put aside talking points during the meeting, they discussed managing relations during the transition to the incoming Trump administration, Mr. Sullivan said.

“It was a reflection on having spent a lot of time together over the course of a decade, in pretty high-pressure situations managing a relationship of very high consequence,” he said.

Mr. Biden was dogged during his term by allegations disclosed by Congress that Chinese government-linked companies and people paid large sums to his son Hunter Biden in a bid to buy influence.