Xi revealed the extent of China's economic woes by the speed at which he caved to some of Biden's demands

• China's Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden had their first meeting in a year this week.
• Xi entered the talks in an unfamiliar position of weakness amid China's economic woes.

China's leader Xi Jinping entered his first meeting with US President Joe Biden in more than a year in an unfamiliar position of weakness.

The Chinese economy, after decades of growth, has hit problems, with a property market-fuelled debt crisis spiking unemployment and causing investors to leave the country.

Xi touched down in San Francisco for the APEC summit in urgent need of US cash to boost Chinese growth.

In a pitch to US business leaders Wednesday, he was at pains to stress his commitment to peaceful coexistence with the US. It was a stark contrast to recent public remarks by the Chinese president, where he sought to blame crises and conflicts across the globe on US meddling.

Xi's predicament highlights that although the US and China are at diplomatic loggerheads, their economies remain intertwined across a range of sectors.

Xi concedes to American requests

In his meeting with Biden on the sidelines of the APEC summit, Xi agreed to several of the American president's requests after only four hours of discussions.

He agreed to clamp down on China's role in the manufacture of chemicals used to make fentanyl, the drug that has devastated millions of lives in the US.

"I think the deal on cracking down on fentanyl precursor chemicals and narcotic equipments was a big win for the United States, given the number of Americans who die from opioids every year," Patricia Kim, a fellow with the Center for East Asia Policy Studies, said on the institute's podcast.

"And I think this is a concrete outcome that President Biden will be able to point to that he achieved by sitting down with President Xi that could resonate with everyday American voters."

Xi also agreed on measures to restrict the climate crisis, providing Biden with a clear diplomatic win just ahead of the COP28 climate change summit in the UAE.

Another US priority, reestablishing top-level military communications that were cut off after Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan last year, was also signed off by Xi.

The New York Times noted just how quickly Xi agreed to the demands, with previous US-China deals brokered after days of painstaking diplomatic negotiations.

And in a further gesture of goodwill, Xi even announced he'd be sending new pandas to the US which he described as "envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples," reported the Associated Press.

Xi's ambitions for global dominance remain unchanged

Analysts say that Xi's concessions are tactical maneuvers, designed to reduce tensions with the US and buy Beijing time and space to repair its economy.

However, they don't signify a change in its strategic ambitions.

"It can bring some stability but not change the nature of a relationship that probably hasn't found bottom yet," Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center's Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, told NPR ahead of the Biden-Xi meeting.

The US and China are backing rivals in conflicts across the globe, in what some experts have likened to the proxy wars waged by the US and Russia at the height of the Cold War.

Xi, say analysts, is seeking to use the conflicts to undermine and damage US global influence and supplant it as the world's most powerful nation.

On Xi's support for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who the US has tried to isolate over the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, no agreements were made.

There was also silence on Beijing's longtime support for the US' main adversary in the Middle East, Iran, which has sought to stir rage in the region over Israel's attacks on Gaza, and whose proxies are behind a wave of attacks on US military bases in the region.

Xi returned empty-handed from the meeting regarding one of his core priorities; persuading Biden to overturn a ban on the sale of AI chips to China that the US believes could be used to build weapons.

Discussions on the independence of Taiwan, which has long been among the main flashpoints in US-China relations, were inconclusive, The New York Times reported. And with the Taiwanese presidential election approaching, tensions between Beijing and Washington are likely to continue ratcheting up.

Though Xi is hoping for a short-term decrease in tensions, Chinese economic woes are unlikely to have altered his long-term calculations.