Taiwan Among Four 'Red Lines' for China, Xi tells Biden

China's President Xi Jinping told his U.S. counterpart, President Joe Biden, that the issues of Taiwan, democracy, human rights and rights to development are "red lines" for China and not to be challenged, the official state media Xinhua said Sunday.

Biden met Xi for about two hours on Saturday at a hotel where the Chinese leader was staying, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Lima, Peru, for their first talks in seven months.

Xi warned the United States not to get involved in bilateral disputes over islands and reefs in the South China Sea or "aid or abet the impulsion to make provocations" in that region, it said.

“A new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won. Containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail,” Mr. Xi was quoted as saying, Xinhua reported.

China and United States would roil or even see relations take a setback in rivalry with each other, but could make considerable progress by treating each other as partners and friends, Xi told Biden on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic forum summit in Peru, according to Xinhua.

Further, Xi told Biden that the four demands must not be “challenged or crossed."

"When the two countries treat each other as partner and friend, seek common ground while shelving differences and help each other succeed, our relationship would make considerable progress," Xi told Biden through an interpreter. "But if we take each other as rivals or adversary, pursue vicious competition, and seek to hurt each other, we would roil the relationship or even set it back."