Xi Sends Biden “Message Of Sympathy” After Catching COVID

Chinese President Xi Jinping has reached out to President Joe Biden, sending him best wishes for a “speedy recovery” on Friday after the White House announced the 79-year old US president has Covid-19 with “very mild symptoms”.

Chinese state media is widely reporting that President Xi sent Biden a personal “message of sympathy” – which comes as the two leaders are preparing to speak by phone for the first time since March.

Reuters

Biden had announced Wednesday, “I think I’ll be talking to President Xi within the next 10 days.”

Biden, who is “fully vaccinated and twice boosted” is still said to be working in isolation at the White House residence, and some reports say the expected phone call with Xi could come as early as next week.

But it appears a brief call has come early in the wake of the Covid diagnosis:

China’s news agency Xinhua used “sends [a] message” to describe Xi’s contact with Biden.

Xi expressed his “deepest sympathies,” according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese state media report. The brief report did not mention whether the leaders communicated on other topics.

High on the agenda for their upcoming dialogue will be the war in Ukraine, which Beijing has refused to call an invasion, the simmering Taiwan crisis as China has ratcheted its rhetoric regarding Navy warships in the region, and the question of extending or reducing Trump-era tariffs on China amid continued supply chain disruptions and rising inflation. 

Karine Jean-Pierre to WSJ’s Catherine Lucey on how often Biden is tested for COVID-19: “It is between him and his personal doctor on that protocol.”

Recall how the media were apoplectic at any suggestion from Team Trump that his medical decisions were a personal matter pic.twitter.com/TzzwoYQoXn

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 21, 2022

Last month, on the heels of the G7 summit, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said somewhat provocatively: “We do think that there is increasing convergence, both at the G7 and at NATO, around the challenge China poses.”