Biden and Xi talk; so does Kim

President Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke for over two hours Thursday morning. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s potential visit to Taiwan—a self-governing island China claims as its own—threw a shadow over the meeting. Xi emphasized China’s claim over the island in an outline of the discussion released by Beijing. Its Foreign Ministry also issued a warning that “Those who play with fire will perish by it.” Biden’s position was that the U.S. still “strongly opposes unilateral efforts to change the status quo or undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” according to a White House statement. Besides Taiwan, the two countries have conflicted on several other issues, including China’s refusal to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, continuing tariffs on China set by the Trump administration, and friction over China’s increasing aggression in the South China Sea. The two countries also differ in their views on North Korea.

What else is happening in the Pacific? North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that he’s prepared to respond with nuclear weapons in the event of war against the United States or South Korea. Kim made the claims in a speech to war veterans at a celebration of the 69th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War. The Korean leader also claims foreign powers are pushing the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.

Dig deeper: Listen to my report on The World and Everything in It about how Japan and South Korea are trying to move past a bitter history in the face of Chinese and North Korean aggression.