NEW DELHI (Reuters) – The clash between Israel and Gaza is a “disturbing manifestation” of demanding geopolitical situations for the U. S. -backed multinational economic corridor, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday.
In September, world leaders announced a rail and port deal that will link the Middle East and South Asia, as the United States seeks to counter China’s infrastructure gains with a new economic corridor.
The proposed hall will rule Israel, which is embroiled in a bitter standoff with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for the cross-border militant attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
“This room does not have demanding geopolitical situations and the current confrontation in Israel and Gaza is a disturbing manifestation of this,” Sitharaman told a conference.
U. S. President Joe Biden meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Wednesday for the first time in a year, for talks likely aimed at easing friction between opposing superpowers over military conflicts, drug trafficking and synthetic intelligence.
However, we would possibly have to wait a day to make profound progress on the huge differences between the world’s economic superpowers.
Officials on both sides of the Pacific have lowered their expectations as Biden and Xi prepare to talk about Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Israel-Hamas war, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea and human rights — one and all of them. spaces where leaders have been unable to overcome long-standing disagreements.
Biden and Xi arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday, where they were scheduled to attend their assembly on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
The leaders of the 21-member organization (and plenty of CEOs in San Francisco to court them) are meeting amid China’s economic weakness, simmering territorial disputes between Beijing and its neighbors, and a clash in the Middle East that is dividing the United States. of their allies.
Efforts to painstakingly choreograph Xi’s scale in this restive Northern California city could be thwarted, despite efforts to drive other homeless people off the streets. The road from the airport to the convention site was littered with pro- and anti-Chinese Communist Party protesters, a sight for Xi, whose last stop was in the United States in 2017.
Biden has sought direct international relations with Xi, betting that private appointments he has had for a dozen years with China’s toughest leader since Mao Zedong could salvage bilateral relations that are turning hostile.
Xi and Biden are expected to meet at the convention site, in a vast area, miles from San Francisco, consciously selected for its safety, serenity and remoteness.
“The table has been set . . . over the course of several weeks for what we hope will be a very productive, frank and constructive conversation,” White House spokesman John Kirby said while aboard Air Force One.
During the meeting, which could last only a few hours, Biden is expected to press Xi to use China’s influence to urge Iran not to take provocative steps or inspire its proxies to enter the fray, in order to provoke a regional escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
He is also expected to talk about Chinese “influence operations” in foreign elections and the prestige of U. S. citizens who Washington says are unjustly detained in China.
U. S. officials hoped for concrete steps to restore talks between the two countries on specific issues, from military-to-military communications to reducing the use of fentanyl, managing the expansion of synthetic intelligence technologies, managing industry and the climate. to make fentanyl come from China, US officials say.
Biden, 80, presides over an economy that has surpassed expectations and made countries richer after the COVID-19 pandemic. Unpopular with American voters, it is a second term amid considerations about the stability of American democracy.
He has brought together the country’s classic allies, from Europe to Asia, to confront Russia in Ukraine, though some have differences over the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Xi, Biden’s junior for a decade, has tightened his control over politics, heads of state, the media and the military and replaced the constitution. Recently, mounting economic problems have knocked the country off its three-decade-long trajectory of rocket-propelled expansion.
Government officials in the region expect Beijing to rein in Washington in the coming weeks, taking advantage of the U. S. pivot to Ukraine and Israel, while pursuing its own ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.