US and China first phone call in two years deemed constructive despite ‘negative factors’

News Snapshot:

China's president Xi Jinping and US president Joe Biden last November: Mr Biden said in a phone call on Wednesday the US would continue to take 'necessary actions to prevent advanced US technologies from being used to undermine... national security'. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images Joe Biden and Xi Jinping have discussed Taiwan, Ukraine, artificial intelligence and climate change in a call lasting almost two hours that both sides described as candid and constructive. It was the two leaders’ first direct engagement since they met in San Francisco in November and their first phone call in two years. Mr...