LIMA — Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on Saturday to work with the incoming US administration of Donald J. Trump as he held his final talks with outgoing President Joseph R. Biden on conflicts from cyber crime to trade, Taiwan, the South China Sea and Russia.

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

“China’s goal of a stable, healthy and sustainable China-US relationship remains unchanged” after Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Xi said as he met Mr. Biden, acknowledging “ups and downs” between the countries. “China is ready to work with the new US administration to maintain communication, expand cooperation and manage differences.”

Mr. Biden told Mr. Xi that the two leaders have not always agreed but their discussions have been “frank” and “candid.”

Two months before Mr. Trump returns to the White House, US officials see magnified risks of conflict during the transition. Mr. Biden told Mr. Xi that maintaining leader-to-leader talks would be vital even after he left office, said Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

The president-elect has vowed to adopt blanket 60% tariffs on US imports of Chinese goods as part of a package of America First trade measures. Beijing opposes those steps. The Republican also plans to hire several hawkish voices on China in senior roles, including US Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state and Representative Mike Waltz as national security adviser.

Mr. Biden has aimed to lower tensions with China, and there were few signs of a breakthrough on the major issues.

But Mr. Biden and Mr. Xi did agree that human beings, not artificial intelligence, should make decisions over the use of nuclear weapons, according to the White House, the first time the countries are known to have raised the issue.

The US and Chinese presidents also talked about North Korea, an ally of China whose deepening ties with Russia and deployment of troops in Moscow’s war with Ukraine have raised concerns in Washington, Beijing and European capitals.

“President Biden pointed out that the (People’s Republic of China’s or PRC) publicly stated position with respect to the war in Ukraine is there should be no escalation, no broadening the conflict, and the introduction of (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK) troops runs foursquare against that,” said Mr.  Sullivan.

“He also pointed out that the PRC does have influence and capacity, and should use it to try to prevent a further escalation or further expansion of the conflict with the introduction of even more DPRK forces.”

MAJOR ISSUES
Other major issues raised at the meeting included a recent China-linked hack of the telephone communications of US government and presidential campaign officials, stepped-up pressure by Beijing on Taiwan and in the South China Sea, as well as Chinese support for Russia. Mr. Biden also raised the cases of Americans he believes are wrongly detained in China.

On Taiwan, the leaders appear to have had a sharp exchange. Mr. Biden called for an end to Beijing’s “destabilizing” military activity around the island, the White House said.

Mr. Xi said the “‘Taiwan independence’ separatist activities” of Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te were incompatible with peace and stability there, according to the Chinese foreign ministry. Mr. Lai plans to stop in the US state of Hawaii and maybe Guam on a sensitive visit that is sure to anger Beijing in the coming weeks, Reuters reported on Friday.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry thanked Mr. Biden for his comments, and said China was the troublemaker.

“China’s persistent military provocations around Taiwan are the greatest source of damage to regional peace and stability and a major threat to global economic prosperity,” it said in a statement.

Taiwan’s former Economy Minister Lin Hsin-i met Mr. Biden at the summit on Friday and invited him to visit Taiwan in the near future.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory. The US is Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier, despite the lack of formal diplomatic recognition. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claims.

At the same time, Beijing’s economy is taking a stiff hit from Mr. Biden’s steps on trade, including a plan to restrict US investment in Chinese artificial intelligence, quantum computing and semiconductors, and export restrictions on high-end computer chips. Mr. Biden has described those steps as necessary for US national security reasons and said they do not impede most trade.

During the meeting, Mr. Xi said no evidence supported the claim of Chinese involvement in cyber attacks, according to Chinese state media. He also told Mr. Biden that Washington should not get involved in disputes in the Spratly Islands, the subject of a dispute between China and the US-allied Philippines.

Beijing has rejected a 2016 ruling by The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration, which said its expansive maritime claims over the South China Sea had no legal basis, in a case that was brought by Manila.

“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,” Mr. Xi told Mr. 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.”

The two leaders also privately reflected back on the blunt-spoken dynamics of their long relationship, said Sullivan, the US national security adviser.

Shen Dingli, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar, said China wants to ease tensions during the transition period. “China definitely does not want relations with the United States to be thrown into turmoil before Trump formally takes office,” said Mr. Shen.

Pacific Rim leaders gathered at the APEC summit are assessing the implications of Mr. Trump’s return to power on Jan. 20. The South American summit offers new signs of the challenges to the United States’ power in its own backyard, where China is on a charm offensive.

Mr. Xi, who arrived in Lima on Thursday, plans a week-long diplomatic blitz in Latin America that includes a refurbished free-trade agreement with Peru, inaugurating the massive Chancay deep-water port there and being welcomed in Brazil’s capital next week for a state visit. China also announced plans to host the APEC summit in 2026.

China is seeking Latin America’s metal ores, soybeans and other commodities, but US officials worry they may also be looking for new US-adjacent military and intelligence outposts. Chinese state-backed media has called those accusations a smear. — Reuters

TOKYO — Japanese authorities seeking to reduce the carbon footprint and overcrowding at Mount Fuji will propose a trackless, rubber-tired tram system made by China’s CRRC to transport climbers, a person with direct knowledge of the plan said.

The new proposal, which has not been previously reported, would replace the original plan to build a light-rail system connecting the base to the fifth hiking station of the popular Yoshida Trail, which goes to the top, after a local city and other parties, voiced concern over its environmental and cost impact.

Yamanashi Prefecture, home of the most popular route used by climbers of the 3,776-meter (12,3388-foot) volcano, is set to announce the plan soon, the person told Reuters, asking for anonymity because the information is not yet public.

Mount Fuji, which straddles Yamanashi and Shizuoka Prefectures, is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Japan, whose numbers have surged in recent years.

Pollution from the constant stream of tourist buses and cars arriving at the fifth station, as well as overcrowding on the trails, have become headaches for authorities seeking to clean up the site, which Japanese people hold sacred.

Mount Fuji was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2013, further boosting its appeal. But the distinction came on the condition that Japan reduce overcrowding, environmental harm from visitors, and fix the artificial landscape, such as the large parking lots constructed to accommodate tourists.

Shanghai-listed CRRC’s Autonomous Rapid Transit is a new-generation tram that uses magnetic road markings and can be operated unmanned.

Yamanashi Prefecture plans to use locally produced hydrogen to power the tram, the source said. The transit system is expected to slash the project’s cost by as much as 40% from the roughly 140 billion yen ($895 million) estimated for the rail system, said the source.

The new plan would allow the prefecture to use the existing Fuji Subaru Line toll road and prohibit the entry of all private vehicles and sightseeing buses, the person said. The prefecture hopes to conduct a pilot run as early as the next fiscal year starting in April.

Yamanashi is also aiming to build a tram network that would extend to local municipalities and connect to a magnetic levitation rail system planned by Central Japan Railway in the 2030s, the person said.

Yamanashi Prefecture declined to comment on the plan.

During the summer climbing season between July to September this year, the mountain hosted 204,316 climbers. Authorities have said they hoped to control the number of visitors through a public transit system. — Reuters

BAKU — The world’s warming tropical wetlands are releasing more methane than ever before, research shows — an alarming sign that the world’s climate goals are slipping further out of reach.

A massive surge in wetlands methane — unaccounted for by national emissions plans and undercounted in scientific models — could raise the pressure on governments to make deeper cuts from their fossil fuel and agriculture industries, according to researchers.

Wetlands hold huge stores of carbon in the form of dead plant matter that is slowly broken down by soil microbes. Rising temperatures are like hitting the accelerator on that process, speeding up the biological interactions that produce methane. Heavy rains, meanwhile, trigger flooding that causes wetlands to expand.

Scientists had long projected wetland methane emissions would rise as the climate warmed, but from 2020 to 2022, air samples showed the highest methane concentrations in the atmosphere since reliable measurements began in the 1980s.

Four studies published in recent months say that tropical wetlands are the likeliest culprit for the spike, with tropical regions contributing more than 7 million tonnes to the methane surge over the last few years.

“Methane concentrations are not just rising, but rising faster in the last five years than any time in the instrument record,” said Stanford University environmental scientist Rob Jackson, who chairs the group that publishes the five-year Global Methane Budget, last released in September.

Satellite instruments revealed the tropics as the source of a large increase. Scientists further analyzed distinct chemical signatures in the methane to determine whether it came from fossil fuels or a natural source — in this case, wetlands.

The Congo, Southeast Asia and the Amazon and southern Brazil contributed the most to the spike in the tropics, researchers found.

Data published in March 2023 in Nature Climate Change shows that annual wetland emissions over the past two decades were about 500,000 tonnes per year higher than what scientists had projected under worst-case climate scenarios.

Capturing emissions from wetlands is challenging with current technologies.

“We should probably be a bit more worried than we are,” said climate scientist Drew Shindell at Duke University,

The La Niña climate pattern that delivers heavier rains to parts of the tropics appeared somewhat to blame for the surge, according to one study published in September in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But La Niña alone, which last ended in 2023, cannot explain record-high emissions, Mr. Shindell said.

For countries trying to tackle climate change, “this has major implications when planning for methane and carbon dioxide emissions cuts,” said Zhen Qu, an atmospheric chemist at North Carolina State University who led the study on La Niña impacts.

If wetland methane emissions continue to rise, scientists say governments will need to take stronger action to hold warming at 1.5°C (2.7°F), as agreed in the United Nations (UN) Paris climate accord.

WATER WORLD
Methane is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide (CO2) at trapping heat over a timespan of 20 years, and accounts for about one-third of the 1.3°C (2.3°F) in warming that the world has registered since 1850. Unlike CO2, however, methane washes out of the atmosphere after about a decade, so it has less of a long-term impact.

More than 150 countries have pledged to deliver 30% cuts from 2020 levels by 2030, tackling leaky oil and gas infrastructure.

But scientists have not yet observed a slowdown, even as technologies to detect methane leaks have improved. Methane emissions from fossil fuels have remained around a record high of 120 million tonnes since 2019, according to the International Energy Agency’s 2024 Global Methane Tracker report.

Satellites have also picked up more than 1,000 large methane plumes from oil and gas operations over the past two years, according to a UN Environment Programme report published on Friday, but the countries notified responded to just 12 leaks.

Some countries have announced ambitious plans for cutting methane.

China last year said it would strive to curb flaring, or burning off emissions at oil and gas wells.

President Joe Biden’s administration finalized a methane fee for big oil and gas producers last week, but it is likely to be scrapped by the incoming presidency of Donald Trump.

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s environment minister Eve Bazaiba told Reuters on the sidelines of the UN climate summit Conference of the Parties (COP29) that the country was working to assess the methane surging from the Congo Basin’s swampy forests and wetlands. Congo was the largest hotspot of methane emissions in the tropics in the 2024 methane budget report.

“We don’t know how much [methane is coming off our wetlands],” she said. “That’s why we bring in those who can invest in this way, also to do the monitoring to do the inventory, how much we have, how we can also exploit them.” — Reuters