Biden, Xi hold first talks in a year. Global conflicts, fentanyl and stable ties top their agenda

President Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping opened their first face-to-face meeting in more than a year on Wednesday with a solid handshake ahead of talks with far-reaching implications for a world grappling with economic cross currents, wars in the Middle East and Europe, tensions in Taiwan and more.

The two leaders, meeting at a bucolic country estate outside San Francisco, are looking to get communication back on track after a tumultuous year and to show the world that while they are global economic competitors, they're not locked in a winner-take-all faceoff.

Biden arrived first and awaited Xi, who got out of a black car and took Biden's hand before the two leaders walked a red carpet through the estate's grand entrance with a China flag on one side and a US flag on the other. Five Marines stood in formation.

Since they last met, already fraught ties have been further strained by the US downing of a Chinese spy balloon that had traversed the continental US and by differences on the self-ruled island of Taiwan, China's hacking of a Biden official's emails and other incidents.