The White House has begun making plans for a meeting in November San Franciscobetween the president Biden and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping — an attempt to stabilize relations between the world’s two most powerful countries, according to senior administration officials.
“It is clear” that there will be a meeting, said a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the commitment has not yet been officially announced. “We are starting the planning process,” the official said.
A second senior administration official said Biden was eager to meet with Xi but that “nothing has been confirmed yet.”
U.S. President Joe Biden meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali, Indonesia, November 14, 2022. Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Portal
The plans will be finalized after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit Washington in the coming weeks, government officials said.
The facetoface meeting would be the first between the leaders of the two largest economies since they met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last November. There, the two presidents emphasized the importance of personal diplomacy and expressed hope that they could get USChina relations back on the right track.
But after Biden ordered the downing of a Chinese spy balloon that flew over the mainland United States in February, relations further frayed.
In an effort to revitalize ties, four senior Biden administration officials have traveled to Beijing in recent months, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and climate envoy John F. Kerry. Last month, national security adviser Jake Sullivan held two days of talks with Wang in Malta. The White House described these discussions as “candid, factual and constructive.”
But communication between senior American military officials and their counterparts in Beijing remains frozen despite repeated attempts from the American side. In March, Xi accused Washington of leading Western efforts to “contain, encircle and suppress China” to slow its development.
And last month, China’s top spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, suggested in a cryptic and unusual post on its WeChat social media page that the prospects for a XiBiden summit would depend on whether the United States ” show sufficient sincerity”. ” As a rule, the secret service does not comment publicly, especially not on foreign policy.
Biden, for his part, has made comments — off the cuff at fundraisers or in brief conversations with reporters — that have angered Beijing. In June, at a fundraiser, he called Xi a “dictator” who knew nothing about the spy balloon and said the Chinese president was “very embarrassed” when the balloon was shot down. He also noted that China is experiencing “real economic difficulties.”
However, Biden has repeatedly indicated in recent months that he hopes to meet with Xi “sometime in the future, in the near future,” he said at a press conference in June. Last month, Xi did not attend the G20 summit in New Delhi, prompting Biden to express his disappointment. But he added: “I’ll see him.”
US President Joe Biden speaks virtually with Chinese leader Xi Jinping from the White House in Washington, USA, November 15, 2021. Photo: Jonathan Ernst / Portal
In comments to the U.N. General Assembly in New York last month, he emphasized his desire to “manage responsibly” competition between the two countries to avoid conflict. “We are for risk reduction,” he said, “not for decoupling from China.”
Chinese observers considered the venue for the meeting to be the AsiaPacific Economic Cooperation Summit in San Francisco. Xi’s nonattendance following his absence from the G20 summit and his avoidance of speaking at a developing world summit in August would leave a bad impression, said Danny Russel, a former White House political affairs adviser. Asia in the Obama administration. “People will conclude that the domestic economic and political problems are too great,” he said. “There will be a cost if he doesn’t go.”
The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden administration officials are moving forward with plans for an APEC meeting. The Chinese, the U.S. official said, “want to do it.” But the White House has decided to bar Hong Kong’s top government official, John Lee, from attending. Lee and 10 other Chinese and Hong Kong officials were sanctioned by Washington in 2020 after they implemented a repressive national security law imposed by authorities in Beijing.
Russell, now vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said the only thing the two leaders had in common was a desire to stabilize relations and avoid “any international crisis or fight,” which could impact their domestic schedules. “But neither is willing to make any significant concessions,” he said. “So any calming effect that a meeting might have will be tactical and temporary.”
Still, he added, even that would be “an improvement.”
Beijing is pushing the United States to ease export controls on key technologies such as advanced semiconductors. Raimondo said in August that he had rejected a call from Chinese officials to terminate the foreign trade agreement.
Other expected areas of discussion between the two leaders include China’s crackdown on foreign companies after expanding a counterespionage law and the release of detained Americans.
In addition to differences over protectionist economic policy, the US opioid crisis is likely to be a topic of tension between the two heads of state and government. Most fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is the leading cause of death among Americans ages 18 to 45, is manufactured in Mexico using precursor chemicals from China.
After Rep. Nancy Pelosi (DCalif.), thenSpeaker of the House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in August 2022, Beijing announced it would freeze cooperation with Washington on drug trafficking and law enforcement. The United States has pressured China to resume cooperation while imposing sanctions on some human traffickers and individuals based in China.