Biden, Xi set virtual summit for Monday to discuss tensions

President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping will hold their muchanticipated virtual summit Monday evening as the two look to dial back tensions after a rough start to the U.s.-china relationship since Biden took office this year.

The White House is setting low expectations for the video call between the leaders. Biden looks to stress that the two nations need to set guardrails in deepening areas of conflict in the increasingly complicated relationship between the two nations. White House officials said that no major announcements are expected to come from the meeting.

“I wouldn’t set the expectation ... that this is intended to have major deliverables or outcomes,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who added that the two leaders would discuss how to manage the countries’ competition and cooperate in areas where interests align.

The meeting will be the third engagement between the two leaders since February. It comes after the U.S. and China this week pledged at U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, to increase their cooperation and speed up action to rein in climate-damaging emissions.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi came to an agreement on holding the Biden-xi virtual summit by year’s end when they met last month for talks in Zurich, but the two sides had not settled on a date.

The virtual meeting was proposed after Biden, who spent a substantial amount of time with Xi when the two were vice presidents, mentioned during a September phone call with the Chinese leader that he would like to be able to see Xi again, according to the White House.

Xi has not left China during the pandemic. White House officials proposed a virtual summit as the best available substitute for the two leaders to have a substantive conversation on issues that have put strains on the U.s.-china relationship.

“We hope the U.S. will work together with China to jointly strive to make the leaders’ summit a success and bring China-u.s. ties back to the right track of sound and stable development,” Chinese Foreign

Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Friday.

There has been no shortage of tension in the relationship in recent months as Biden has made clear he sees Beijing’s actions on some fronts as concerning.

The president has criticized China for human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in northwest China, squelching pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong, and resisting global pressure to cooperate fully with investigations into the origins of the pandemic.

Tensions also have been exacerbated recently by the Chinese military’s flying dozens of sorties near the self-ruled island of Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.

The White House suggested Biden would raise his concerns on many of those issues Monday.