WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on business, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations within the first engagement between the leaders of the sector’s two largest economies in just about a 12 months.
The White House has mentioned for weeks that it expected Biden and Xi would meet at the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, however negotiations went right down to the eve of the collection, which kicks off Saturday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned in a commentary the leaders would speak about 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 mentioned in a commentary Friday that Xi would attend APEC from Tuesday to Nov. 17 at Biden’s invitation and would participate within the U.S.-China summit.
Two senior Biden management officers, who previous briefed newshounds at the situation of anonymity underneath flooring laws set via the White House, mentioned that the leaders would meet within the San Francisco Bay house however declined to supply additional main points on account of safety issues. Thousands of protesters are anticipated to descend on San Francisco all over the summit.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng met on Thursday within the San Francisco, the newest in a string of senior degree engagements between the international locations in fresh months aimed toward easing tensions. Yellen and He are set to proceed talks on Friday.
The Biden-Xi assembly isn’t anticipated to result in many, if any, primary bulletins, and variations between the 2 powers definitely would possibly not be resolved. Instead, one respectable mentioned, Biden is taking a look towards “managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open.” The officers mentioned they believed it will be Xi’s first seek advice from to San Francisco since he used to be a tender Communist Party chief.
The schedule comprises no scarcity of inauspicious problems.
Differences within the already difficult U.S.-Chinese courting have best sharpened within the remaining 12 months, with Beijing bristling over new U.S. export controls on complex generation; Biden ordering the capturing down of a Chinese secret agent balloon after it traversed the continental United States; and Chinese anger over a stopover within the U.S. via Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen previous this 12 months, amongst different problems. China claims the island as its territory.
Biden will additionally most probably press Xi on the use of China’s affect on North Korea, all over heightened nervousness over an greater tempo of ballistic missile checks via North Korea in addition to Pyongyang offering munitions to Russia for its warfare in Ukraine.
The Democratic president could also be anticipated to let Xi know that he would really like China to make use of its burgeoning sway over Iran to shed light on that Tehran or its proxies must now not take motion that would result in enlargement of the Israel-Hamas warfare. His management believes the Chinese, a large purchaser of Iranian oil, have really extensive leverage with Iran, which is a big backer of Hamas.
Biden and Xi remaining met just about a 12 months in the past at the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. In the just about three-hour assembly, Biden objected at once to China’s ”coercive and an increasing number of competitive movements” towards Taiwan and mentioned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and different problems. Xi stressed out that “the Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations.”
Next week’s meeting comes as the United States braces for a potentially bumpy year for U.S.-Chinese relations, with Taiwan set to hold a presidential election in January and the U.S. holding its own presidential election next November.
Beijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island’s decades-old de facto independence permanent, a step U.S. leaders say they don’t support. Under the “One China” policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as the government of China and doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but it has maintained that Taipei is an important partner in the Indo-Pacific. Biden intends to reaffirm the U.S. wants no change in the status quo, one official said.
Disinformation experts testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee have warned that Beijing could aim to target the U.S., sowing discord that might influence election results at the local level, especially in districts with large numbers of Chinese-American voters.
The Biden administration has sought to make clear to the Chinese that any actions or interference in the 2024 election “would raise extremely strong concerns from our side,” according to one official.
The officials also noted that Biden is determined to restore military-to-military communications that Beijing largely withdrew from after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022.
All the while, the number of unsafe or provocative encounters involving the two nations’ ships and aircraft have spiked.
Last month, the U.S. military released a video of a Chinese fighter jet flying within 10 feet (3 meters) of an American B-52 bomber over the South China Sea, nearly causing an accident. Earlier that month, the Pentagon released footage of some of the more than 180 intercepts of U.S. warplanes by Chinese aircraft that occurred in the last two years, part of a trend U.S. military officials call concerning.
The Pentagon has warned that the lack of military-to-military contacts “raises the risk of an operational incident or miscalculation spiraling into crisis or conflict.”
The officials also said Biden would underscore U.S. commitment to the Philippines, following a recent episode in which Chinese ships blocked and collided with two Filipino vessels off a contested shoal in the South China Sea.
The Philippines and other neighbors of China are resisting Beijing’s sweeping territorial claims over virtually the entire sea.
“I want to be very clear,” Biden said in October. “The United States’ protection dedication to the Philippines is iron clad.”
Both facets gave the look to be in moderation taking into account safety for the assembly, declining to publicize the venue of the much-anticipated talks.
Thousands of other folks protesting local weather destruction, company practices, the Israel-Hamas warfare and different problems are anticipated to descend on San Francisco all over the summit.
San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott mentioned his division expects a number of protests an afternoon however does not know which of them will materialize the place and when. He mentioned town respects other folks’s proper to mobilize peacefully however will now not tolerate belongings destruction, violence or every other crime.
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Associated Press author Janie Har in San Francisco and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed reporting.
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