Christiane Amanpour spoke with California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) right after his surprise meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday.

“So it’s a very important trip because it is a sort of precursor to what is going to be a very important visit to the U.S. next month. The APEC summit is happening in his home state, is going to be in San Francisco and everybody hopes that Xi Jinping will come and he and President Biden will have a meeting,” Amanpour said, as she summed up her interview with the governor, adding:

Governor Newsom wouldn’t tell me if she had pledged to him that he had come. He said that’s up to President Xi to say. But he said that he got the impression that everybody was trying to lower the temperature. Listen:

Do you get a sense from him that this relationship is hurtling towards even a hot war in the next few years over Taiwan or whatever it might be? Or what sense did you get from him of a relationship that he wants to have with America going forward?

“The fact that we had access to these high-level meetings? I’ll be meeting with five provincial governors tomorrow. Another extension of this visit I think is suggestive that we’re entering, I hope a new phase, a bit of a thawing,” Newsom replied, adding:

The last few years have been very stressful. I think it goes to your question and we’ve got to turn down the heat. We’ve got to manage our strategic differences. We’ve got to reconcile our strategic red lines. Those are well-established between our two countries. But I want to applaud the Biden administration.

And on the basis of the engagement I had today with members of the administration and President Xi himself, I want to applaud his willingness to reconcile those differences, people to people exchange the fact he’s meeting with the governor of California at the subnational level, I think is indicative of a thawing.

“So I think that’s really important. And clearly, the US administration had actually been turning their prime focus towards China,” Amanpour concluded, while discussing her interview on CNN, adding:

So that’s an important message that Governor Newsom can bring back. And then of course, he did weigh in on U.S. politics as well, because as we were talking, the whole, you know, conundrum around a House speaker was playing out and he tried to assure the Chinese, do not take us for patsies. We are not, you know, weak in any way. ‘This is a clown show,’ as he said. But the U.S. is strong.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.

The post Newsom Hopeful U.S. and China Heading Toward a ‘Bit of a Thaw’ After His Meeting With Xi: ‘We Got to Turn Down the Heat’ first appeared on Mediaite.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/AHYRdjU