NEWS//A journey of a 1000 miles

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (a Chinese proverb ascribed to Laozi).

Wang Xiangwei, editor-in-chief of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Press from 2012-2015, offers his comments on the Xi-Biden summit. He says it was a good start, but US-China ties remain in an on-off cycle. Read his editorial here.

China's President Xi and U.S. President Biden embarked on a thousand-mile journey on November 15 when they met for a virtual summit. Their wide-ranging conversation consumed over three hours.

By the summit's end, both men stated their nation's position on topics that included

• The treatment of Uyghurs China's Xinjiang province, Buddhists in Tibet, and the citiznes of Hong Kong.

• China's trade and economic practices.

• China's interests in the resources of the nations that surround it.

• The importance of freedom of navigation and safe overflight in the Indo-Pacific.

• The status of Taiwan.

• The need for managing national competition so it does not become conflict.

• Climate change.

• Global energy challenges.

What was the outcome of the meeting? Presidents Xi and Biden talked. And they agreed to continue to keep lines of communication open. They began their journey toward improving relations.

Ryan Hass, senior fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution and Stephen Olson, senior research fellow at Hinrich Foundation, expressed cautious optimism.

“The U.S.-China relationship was effectively dysfunctional. ... It was confrontation through public condemnation,” said Ryan Hass. The leadership talks “put a bit of a floor underneath the relationship,” offering stability and stopping a runaway escalation of conflict that is not in the interests of either side, he said. "Neither leader will want to be seen as softening his approach toward the other, but at the same time, neither leader will see profit in allowing the relationship to escalate significantly beyond current levels of tension," he said. "As such, the relationship likely will navigate between a pretty firm floor and ceiling over the coming year."

“The open question for the broader relationship is whether the US and China can constructively manage the slow-motion collision that is now unfolding between their very different worldviews,” said Stephen Olson. “Neither country is going to disappear. Neither country will accede to the other’s view. The prudent path forward would be to find plausible ways for each side’s divergent narratives to coexist,” he said.

No solutions came from this initial Xi-Biden summit. None were expected. What did happen is the thousand-mile journey began.

Sources: MSN, Christian Science Monitor, MSN, Whitehouse.gov, CNBC, The Guardian,