China's Xi: 'Planet Earth Is Big Enough' for Us Both

President Biden and China's Xi Jinping have begun their first face-to-face meeting in a year, and their early remarks suggest that both leaders are putting a priority on lowering tensions between the two superpowers.

• Xi: "Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed," Xi told Biden, per the AP.
• Biden: "We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict," he said, per the BBC.

The leaders are meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in San Francisco, and Biden plans to hold a news conference later Wednesday, per the New York Times. His comments might shed light on how the closed-door portion of their meeting went, expected to cover a range of thorny issues including Taiwan's upcoming elections, the Israel-Hamas war, Ukraine and Russia, and fentanyl. "For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option," said Xi, speaking through a translator. But, he added, "it is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides." (More Xi Jinping stories.)