President Boughten set to meet Chinese President she Jumping in Bali, Indonesia next week, joining us to discuss this. Nick Wadams, Bloomberg National Security Reporter, it's a very important meeting. Always when we see a meeting between the US and Shina and an official saying the President Baden is aiming to set a floor for a relationship, but it doesn't look like he's going to back down and make it too
easy for She. What are we expecting make right? I mean, it's it's a pretty extraordinary situation when you think about it. I mean, the US basically going in and trying to set expectations so low to the degree that all they're saying is we're trying to keep this relationship really from
getting any worse. We heard the National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan say today that they would not anticipate there being any deliverables from this meeting, So they're not going to set up, presumably any new lines of communication, or any new committees or any new working groups and anything like that that might signal some sort of progress in the relationship. They also said there would not be a redoubt of the of the meeting, So, um, you know, so we
won't actually know publicly what happened in this meeting. It's just described as a chance for the two of them to sort of sit down and look look at each other eye to eye and and set some red lines. So really, to me, what we're looking at is is just something that really symbolizes just how bad relations have gotten between the US and China, and how both sides
seemingly think there's really nowhere for them to go but down. Yeah, in many ways, I mean, you would think that we've crossed the red lines, right, whether it's Taiwan or some of the technology transfer issues that the Biden administration has put into a fact that isn't really limiting UH China's access to some of the most advanced semiconductor technology. I mean, it's potential or this relationship has the potential to get
much worse, doesn't doesn't it? It does? And you know, I mean, I I was thinking today about the echo between the way that the administration has talked about this meeting and prepared for it and the way that they did with the meeting Biden had with Vladimir Putin in the summer of one when he went to Geneva you know, there was so much hype in Hullabalu around that meeting, and it was described in very similar ways. They're gonna set guardrails, the US is going to lay down its
red lines. Of course, what happened, you know, seven eight months later Russia went on to invade Ukraine and relations between the US and Russia really have never been worse. So, you know, on the one him, that's a question of, well, how much significance do we sort of imbue these meetings with It will be who knows, you know, an hour or so, maybe a bit longer meetings between the two
of them, Um, what can they really solve there? But then, you know, it's just so striking to me, and you know, the chances for how things could continue to go terribly wrong, whether it's new terrorists, whether it's continued tension over Taiwan. I frankly just don't see how Biden can achieve what he's saying he wants. I mean either side, you know, if you want to set the floor, well how do you do that? And they're not really saying right now on the Taiwan front. I mean, we know that there
has been increased military pressure precious since Pelosi. Nanti Pelosi visited Taipei in August. How much do you think we are going to see the conversation's focus on those tensions. I have a great deal. I think Taiwan will be central to that conversation, both mostly because both sides blamed the other for inflaming tensions. The US says that it's China taking a much more aggressive posture to Taiwan, which in some ways it has done over the last several years.
On the other hand, China is very worried about President Biden because he says, you know that the the status quo has not changed the US respects to one China policy, but then he continues repeatedly to go beyond what that policy says, saying that he would defend Taiwan and the event that China invaded, which is not something the US has committed to before. So um. You know. The thing there, though, is interesting, is these these guys know each other's positions
very clearly. They parse everything the US and China trade statements all the time. So I expect it will be an opportunity to them for them to reiterate those positions. But I don't think either of them is going to say anything that will surprise the other one. So maybe we just have to get used to a deeper decoupling, if I can use that term to describe it. I mean, we're dealing with two superpowers and uh, increasingly both more
isolated one from the other. Well, that's certainly seems to be the way that it's heading, I mean, and that to me is interesting where you could see these guys sort of decide, Okay, maybe now it's time to pull
back from the brink. And maybe that's naive or overly optimistic, but if you play out a future, these the world's too largest economies, they have essentially intertwined with one another so greatly that too d couple would rec fire a massive economic rupture that would essentially cause the global economy to go into a tailspin um. I mean, this would be a major change. So if they're looking over the edge, who knows, maybe they'll pull back. Nick, thank you so
much for being with us. Nick Wadham's Bloomberg national security reporter, helping us a preview next week's meeting between President's Biden and she here on Daybreak, Asia