Following the conference, the United States and China have agreed to restore military communications.

President Joe Biden says the United States and China have agreed to restore military-to-military communications in an effort to defuse increasing tensions.

“We’re back to direct, open, clear communications,” he said on Wednesday after a rare meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping in California.

It was their first face-to-face conversation in over a year.

Mr. Biden also stated that both presidents have agreed to create direct communication channels with one another.

Mr Biden said at a news conference following the meeting, which was held at a historic country house near San Francisco, that a lack of contact was “how accidents happen,” and that both presidents could now “pick up the phone and be directly heard immediately.”

After then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year, China cut military-to-military connections. Beijing considers self-governed Taiwan to be its territory and has vowed to take it militarily if necessary.

Mr. Biden stated that, despite their many disputes, Mr. Xi had “just been straight.” He described the sessions as “some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had.”

But, in a sign of how strained ties remain, Mr Biden replied to a reporter’s query as he exited the platform by calling Mr Xi a tyrant.

“He’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country… based on a form of government that is totally different from ours,” he went on to say. When Vice President Joe Biden made a similar remark in June, Chinese authorities responded sharply, calling it “extremely absurd and irresponsible.”

In addition to restarting military communications, the two sides established a number of additional agreements in areas that had recently been tense.

These measures included addressing the influx of fentanyl into the US, which has contributed to an increase in overdose deaths in the country.

Chinese manufacturing firms provide not only the synthetic opioid but also the precursor chemicals that can be combined to manufacture it. “We’re taking action to significantly reduce the flow of precursor chemicals and pill presses from China to the Western Hemisphere,” stated Vice President Joe Biden.

China will specifically target enterprises that produce such precursor chemicals under the terms of the agreement. “It will save lives,” Vice President Biden told reporters.

The two presidents also discussed the Israeli-Gaza conflict. One senior US official told reporters that Mr Biden had requested China to use its influence with Iran to persuade it not to take risky moves.

The two countries also agreed to collaborate study artificial intelligence (AI) and had a lengthy discussion over Taiwan, which Mr Xi described as “the biggest, most dangerous issue in US-China relations,” according to one US official.

Following the negotiations, China stated that the resumed communications between the two forces were done so on the basis of “equality and respect.”

“Planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed, and one country’s success is an opportunity for the other,” Mr. Xi said in his opening remarks. “Confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”

While the meeting on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) conference was keenly anticipated, officials on both sides downplayed the possibility of big breakthroughs.

“The goals here are really about managing competition, preventing the downside of risk – of conflict, and ensuring channels of communication are open,” said a senior US government official.

When a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down above US airspace in February, relations deteriorated.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing in June, becoming the highest-ranking US official to visit the Chinese capital in nearly five years. He had meetings with President Xi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

Mr Blinken said at the end of his tour that while there were still huge concerns between the two countries, he hoped for “better communications [and] better engagement going forward.”