Biden and Xi to meet for talks on trade, Taiwan
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on trade, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations in the first engagement between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies in a year.
The White House has said for weeks that it anticipated Biden and Xi would meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, but negotiations went down to the eve of the gathering, which kicks off Saturday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement the leaders would discuss the “continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication” and how the they “can continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, particularly on transnational challenges that affect the international community.”
China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that Xi would attend APEC from Tuesday to Nov. 17 at Biden’s invitation and would take part in the U.S.-China summit.
Two senior Biden administration officials, who earlier briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said that the leaders would meet in the San Francisco Bay area but declined to offer further details because of security concerns. Thousands of protesters are expected to descend on San Francisco during the summit.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met on Thursday in the San Francisco, the latest in a string of senior level engagements between the nations in recent months aimed at easing tensions. Yellen and He are set to continue talks on Friday.
The Biden-Xi meeting is not expected to lead to many, if any, major announcements, and differences between the two powers certainly won’t be resolved. Instead, one official said, Biden is looking toward “managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open.” The officials said they believed it would be Xi’s first visit to San Francisco since he was a young Communist Party leader.
The agenda includes no shortage of difficult issues.
Differences in the already complicated U.S.-Chinese relationship have only sharpened in the last year, with Beijing bristling over new U.S. export controls on advanced technology; Biden ordering the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed the continental United States; and Chinese anger over a stopover in the U.S. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ingwen earlier this year, among other issues. China claims the island as its territory.
Biden will also likely press Xi on using China’s influence on North Korea, during heightened anxiety over an increased pace of ballistic missile tests by North Korea as well as Pyongyang providing munitions to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
The Democratic president is also expected to let Xi know that he would like China to use its burgeoning sway over Iran to make clear that Tehran or its proxies should not take action that could lead to expansion of the Israel-Hamas war. His administration believes the Chinese, a big buyer of Iranian oil, have considerable leverage with Iran, which is a major backer of Hamas.