Biden and Xi have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021.
President Joe Biden will meet on Monday with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of next week’s Group of 20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, a face-to-face meeting that comes amid increasingly strained US-China relations, the White House has announced.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Thursday the leaders will meet to “discuss efforts to maintain and deepen lines of communication between” the two countries and to "responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, especially on transnational challenges that affect the international community.”
The White House has been working with Chinese officials over the last several weeks to arrange the meeting.
Biden on Wednesday told reporters that he intended to discuss with Xi growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, trade policies, Beijing’s relationship with Russia and more.
“What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what each of our red lines are and understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, what I know to be the critical interests of the United States,” Biden said. “And determine whether or not they conflict with one another.”
READ MORE: Xi: China, US must find ways to get along
'Floor for the relationship'
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the summit, sought to downplay expectations for the meeting , telling reporters on Thursday that there was no joint communique or deliverables anticipated from the sit-down. Rather, the official said, Biden aimed to build a “floor for the relationship.”
Biden and Xi travelled together in the US and China in 2011 and 2012 when both leaders were serving as their respective countries' vice presidents, and they have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021. But the US-China relationship has become far more complicated since those getting-to-know-you talks in Washington and on the Tibetan plateau a decade ago.
Weeks before Vladimir Putin launched his offensive on Ukraine, the Russian president met with Xi in Beijing and the two issued a memorandum expressing hopes of a “no limits” relationship for their nations.
China has largely refrained from criticising Russia’s war but thus far has held off on supplying Moscow with arms.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of respect that China has for Russia or Putin,” Biden said Wednesday. “And in fact, they’ve been sort of keeping the distance a little bit.”
Growing clout
The leaders were also expected to address US frustrations that Beijing has not used its influence to press North Korea to pull back from conducting provocative missile tests and to abandon its nuclear weapons program. Biden was set to discuss threats from North Korea with the leaders of South Korea and Japan a day before sitting down with Xi.
Xi’s government has criticised the Biden administration’s posture toward Taiwan — which Beijing looks eventually to unify with the communist mainland — as undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese president also has suggested that Washington wants to stifle Beijing’s growing clout as it tries to overtake the US as the world’s largest economy.
Tensions over Taiwan have grown since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island in August.
Biden said that he’s “not willing to make any fundamental concessions” about the United States’ Taiwan doctrine.
Under its “One China” policy, the United States recognises the government in Beijing while allowing for informal relations and defence ties with Taipei. It takes a stance of “strategic ambiguity” toward the defence of Taiwan — leaving open the question of whether it would respond militarily were the island attacked.
READ MORE: US military: Russia poses 'sharp threat' but China is main challenge
Copyright © 2024 TRT World.