[Source: Reuters]

U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed on Wednesday to open a presidential hotline, resume military-to-military communications and work to curb fentanyl production, showing tangible progress in their first face-to-face talks in a year.

Biden and Xi met for about four hours on the outskirts of San Francisco to discuss issues that have strained U.S.-Chinese relations.

They plan to resume military contacts that China severed after then-House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022.

“We’re back to direct, open clear direct communication on a direct basis,” Biden said.

In addition, Biden said he and Xi agreed to high-level communications. “He and I agreed that each one of us can pick up the phone call directly and we’ll be heard immediately.”

But in a comment likely to irk the Chinese, Biden told reporters later that he had not changed his view that Xi is a dictator.

“Well, look, he is. I mean, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country,” Biden said.

Xi told Biden that the negative views of the Communist Party in the United States were unfair, a U.S. official told reporters after the meeting.

Biden and Xi came into the talks looking to smooth over a rocky period in relations that took a turn for the worse after a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon transited the United States and was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet in February.

Biden said he raised areas where Washington has concerns, including detained U.S. citizens, human rights and Beijing’s aggressive activities in the South China Sea.