00:00 Ian Bremner is the president of the Eurasia Group and will be speaking at the APEC Leaders Summit.
00:06 He told me the meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden is the most important either leader will have had for some time.
00:13 It's always useful to get heads of state together in a large format. And of course when you talk about the Pacific
00:21 Basin you're talking about the future of the global economy. So that matters. But really what everyone is paying attention
00:28 to here is less the APEC summit itself and more the summit that's happening at the end between President Biden and
00:37 President Xi against the backdrop of what has been very challenging relations. The two most powerful countries in the
00:42 world. And you think face to face matters so much more than virtual diplomacy.
00:47 It always does. The fact that we basically had over two years of the Chinese in particular locked down during zero covid
00:57 policy. Nobody going out. Nobody traveling in. So much of the relationships between the two countries were drying on the
01:07 vine. Zoom does not cut it especially in a relationship where you don't know each other very well and you don't trust each
01:14 other that much. You have to be building those relationships in person. Fortunately over the last few months a lot of high
01:19 level engagement and a lot of working groups being set up that I think does reduce the risk in the relationship. What do you
01:26 think we can expect from the meeting between President Biden and President Xi Jinping.
01:31 Well first of all the two men get along pretty well. They actually like each other and respect each other. And in the
01:41 context of what you read in the headlines that may seem surprising. Of course they knew each other quite well when they were
01:46 both vice president. When you meet with Biden personally and he talks about Xi he does describe that in a way that is pretty
01:54 warm. That's pretty like we know the measure of each other. We need to get along in person. And Biden also has this great man
01:59 theory of politics that if you get two people together in a room they can spend time they can work things out. Now
02:05 specifically on this I'm expecting that we are going to see some progress on tangible issues. So for example the announcement of
02:15 a track one point five on artificial intelligence between the US China on the back of the Bletchley agreement and declaration
02:22 that they both signed on to a week ago in the UK. I think you'll see some movement on fentanyl. I think you'll see some
02:31 movement on climate. The biggest question for me is the future of technology and specifically export controls on
02:40 semiconductors from the US export controls on critical most needs to be figured out and where you could end up in a
02:49 strategic cold war or you could have much more competitive interdependence. So this meeting is relationship rather than the
02:58 expectation of big outcomes. I think that there has been a lot on at the Secretary of State Secretary of Commerce National
03:07 Security Advisor level with their Chinese counterparts over the last few months. There's a lot of planning going on here. I
03:13 dare say I think this is the most important bilateral that either of these two men will have had over the course of the last
03:21 several years. So it is very meaningful. There is an effort to at least put a floor under the US China relationship create a
03:30 more solid and stable working relationship against the backdrop where the geopolitics everywhere else in the world are pretty
03:37 perilous. Whether we talk about the Russia Ukraine war and Europe or we talk about Israel Gaza and the Middle East the US
03:44 China relationship is the one big geopolitical piece that isn't.
