Biden, Xi to hold first in-person meeting
United States President Joe Biden will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in person for the first time since taking office on Monday ahead of a G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
The long-awaited in-person meeting comes as relations between both countries have become further strained by issues from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea, coercive trade practices and U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology.
Biden goes into the meeting on the back of a major domestic victory with Democrats clinching control of the Senate, a development acknowledged by global leaders, while Xi secured an unprecedented third term in office last month.
“I know I’m coming in stronger but I don’t need that. I know Xi Jinping, I spent more time with him than any other world leader.” Biden told reporters in Cambodia on Sunday after the Senate results.
“There’s never any miscalculation about … where each of us stands.”
The meeting is unlikely to produce concrete results and no joint statement is expected, the White House has said, but it could help stabilize ties.
Biden recently said he was unwilling to make any fundamental concessions when he meets Xi, and that he wanted both leaders to lay out their “red lines” and resolve areas of conflict.
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Biden and Xi, who have held five phone or video calls since Biden took office in January 2021, last met in person during the Obama administration.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the meeting could run for two hours or more, and Biden would be “totally straightforward and direct” in the conversation.
“The president sees the United States and China as being engaged in a stiff competition, but that competition should not tip over into conflict or confrontation,” Sullivan told reporters.
The two leaders know each other well, having traveled over 17,000 miles together and spent 78 hours in meetings, according to Biden’s calculations.
They spent time together in the United States and China in 2011 and 2012 when both were serving as their respective countries’ vice presidents.
Beijing, frustrated by what it sees as the Biden administration’s weaponization of economic policies, has sought to expand ties with Europe and Africa.
Xi’s government has also criticized the Biden administration’s posture toward Taiwan as undermining China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Monday’s meeting on the sidelines of a meeting of Group of 20 leaders in Bali, Indonesia, comes weeks after the Biden administration unveiled a new national security strategy that sees an increasingly authoritarian China as the most consequential challenge to the global order.
Zainab Sa’id
