The prominent position of the photo on the front page of China’s main official newspaper spoke volumes: In it, the nation’s leader, Xi Jinping, smiled and shook hands with President Biden against a backdrop of Chinese and American flags.

For months, the newspaper, People’s Daily, has featured Xi’s warnings that China must steel itself militarily and politically for an era of strife, denunciations of American policy and Communist Party officials’ warnings that “hostile forces” — that is, the US — were eager to sabotage China’s rise.

A day after Xi and Biden met for nearly three hours, the upbeat picture of the two men in the paper on Tuesday, as well as guardedly hopeful comments from China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, added to signs that Beijing is wagering that the nations can arrest a downward spiral in relations, even if deep disagreements persist.

“This meeting was both a continuation of exchanges up to now and augurs a new starting point,” Wang told reporters after the summit, according to a Chinese foreign ministry transcript that also appeared in People’s Daily.

“The US and China should show the world that they are able to manage and control their differences,” he said. But Wang also offered a reminder that the long standoff over the future of Taiwan remains a source of potential crisis. Xi, like other Chinese leaders, has insisted that the self-ruled island eventually unifies with Beijing.

In the talks with Xi, Biden said that Washington would hold to its “one China” policy, which acknowledges Beijing’s claim to the island but does not go as far as accepting that claim.

New York Times News Service