President lined up for 4-summit trip

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will make a weeklong, three-country trip next month for four summits, including one that could potentially put him in the same room as China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced Friday that Biden will first travel Nov. 11 to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for the COP 27 climate conference before heading to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to participate in the U.S.-Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and the East Asia Summit. He’ll then head to Bali, Indonesia, for the Group of 20 summit, a gathering of leaders from most of the world’s largest economies.

The president’s overseas travel begins just days after the pivotal midterm elections in the United States, which will determine which party controls the House and Senate.

The G-20 summit could also offer Biden his first opportunity as president to meet face-to-face with his Chinese counterpart, Xi, and potentially puts him in the same room with Putin and Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. The prince is the de facto leader of the oil-rich kingdom.

Putin, Xi and Mohammed have yet to announce their travel plans.

Biden and Xi traveled together in the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents and have held several calls since Biden became president in January 2021. But the U.S.-China relationship has become increasingly fraught.

Biden has taken China to task for human-rights abuses against the Uyghur and other ethnic minorities, squelching democracy activists’ voices in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, its military provocations against democratic, selfruled Taiwan and differences over Russia’s prosecution of its 8-month-old war against Ukraine.

Xi’s government, meanwhile, has criticized the Biden administration’s posture toward Taiwan — which Beijing looks to eventually unify with communist mainland China — as undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said last week that U.S. and Chinese officials were working to arrange a meeting of the leaders but one has not yet been confirmed. At the start of a meeting with Defense Department officials, Biden underscored Wednesday the “responsibility to manage increasingly intense competition with China.”