INDONESIA: US President Joe Biden promised there will be no “new Cold War” with China, following a conciliatory meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, BBC reported.

Biden said he did not believe China would invade Taiwan during his first in-person meeting with Xi.

They also discussed North Korea and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the talks in Bali.

In a three-hour meeting held at a hotel, they discussed a wide range of topics including Taiwan.

Claimed by Beijing, the self-governed island counts the US as an ally, and has always been a thorny issue in US-China relations, BBC reported.

Tensions spiked in August when US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. China responded with large-scale military exercises around the island, prompting fears of a possible conflict between the US and China, according to the BBC report.

A readout to Chinese state media said Xi stressed that Taiwan remained “the core of China’s core interests… and the first red line in US-China relations that cannot be crossed”.

In recent weeks US officials have warned that China may escalate plans to invade Taiwan.

Reporters asked Biden if he believed this to be true, and if he thought a new Cold War was brewing.

“I absolutely believe there need not be a new Cold War. I have met many times with Xi Jinping and we were candid and clear with one another across the board. I do not think there is any imminent attempt on the part of China to invade Taiwan,” he said.

“I made it clear we want to see cross-strait issues to be peacefully resolved and so it never has to come to that. And I’m convinced that he understood what I was saying, I understood what he was saying.”

(Inputs from BBC)