ON the very day they met for their crucial summit meeting where the two agreed to “re-engage and de-escalate tensions”, President Joe Biden called his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping “a dictator”, prompting a quick response from the Chinese foreign ministry, which said “this kind of speech is extremely wrong”, adding that “China firmly opposes it.”

Addressing a press conference after the talks with President Xi, Biden, replying to a question whether he still considered his Chinese counterpart a dictator, said, “Well, he is, I mean he is a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who’s running a country, a Communist country, that is based on a form of government totally different than ours.”

As expected of a mature statesman, Xi himself seemed unruffled by the American president’s remarks saying once the door to China-US relations was opened, it would not be closed again.”

Did the four-hour talks at Woodside, California, succeed even marginally? Yes, one should declare categorically ‘yes’, because the world’s two top head honchos knew the dialogue was too important to fail. One of Xi’s aims was to reach home triumphantly, while Biden, blamed worldwide for his inability to stop the slaughter of the civilian population in Gaza, was keen to show something positive to his people.

The issues they had to tackle were obvious, each one of them explosive in nature: Taiwan, freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, military to military communication, Iran, the Middle East and Ukraine.

Must we pooh-pooh as diplomatese what they said for public consumption? Of course, things were not that easy, because the readouts from both sides revealed tough talk. On Taiwan, Biden satisfied Xi by repeating America’s standard position — that Washington believed in one China but his country would stand by Taiwan if Beijing used force.

One reason for a hardening of the views on Taiwan was former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in 2022. Incensed by Pelosi’s visit, Beijing broke off military to military communication. No wonder Biden and Xi quickly agreed to restore military communication.

On Ukraine, Biden warned Xi against supplying arms to Russia, and that is where we need to take a look at America’s relations with a Russia ruled by an ex-KGB man whose ego US leaders had hurt deeply and repeatedly. Barack Obama had dismissed his country as a regional power which posed no threat to America, and in March 2021, a few months after becoming president, Joe Biden called him “a killer”. No wonder Russian President Vladimir Putin was among the last few leaders to greet Joe Biden on his election as America’s 46th president.

Nevertheless Putin took the initiative and made a phone call to begin a dialogue on the need for renewing the START treaty, which was due to expire in February 2021. The Russian president called because the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks required of the two nuclear giants to limit the size of their stockpile. But a chauvinist like Donald Trump was unwilling to go along. Nevertheless, in March 2021 a new START treaty was signed by Biden and Putin extending the new START by five years.

In June 2021, Biden and Putin met in Geneva and agreed to restore their ambassadors to their posts but no progress was made on key issues.

In March 2014, claiming an allegedly controversial referendum as his reason, Putin attacked and annexed Crimea leading to sanctions from America against some of Russia’s energy, financial and defence companies, but the relations with the US hit a new low in February 2022 when Putin attacked Ukraine. This attack on a sovereign country that was also seeking Nato’s membership was indeed a provocation to the West. However, America and its allies were fully conscious of the risks involved. The US-Nato response was in the form of massive economic and military aid to Ukraine, with Biden making a surprise visit to the country. Nevertheless, the US and its Nato allies were careful not to escalate the conflict, because Putin had warned of a nuclear conflict if Russia’s “territorial integrity” was threatened.

As things stand today, Putin is in no position to conquer Ukraine, exposing his military weakness by seeking military aid from North Korea, while the America-led West sees no problem in prolonging and enjoying Putin’s plight, as the Ukraine conflict has reached a stalemate.

The writer is Dawn’s External Ombudsman and an author.