WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on industry, Taiwan and managing fraught U.S.-Chinese relations within the first engagement between the leaders of the arena’s two largest economies in nearly a year, Biden management officers stated.
The White House has stated for weeks that it expected Biden and Xi would meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, however negotiations went all the way down to the eve of the collection, which kicks off Saturday.
The officers, who briefed newshounds on the situation of anonymity below floor regulations set by way of the White House, stated Friday that the leaders would meet within the San Francisco Bay space however declined to supply additional main points as a result of safety considerations. Thousands of protesters are anticipated to descend on San Francisco all through the summit.
The assembly isn’t anticipated to result in many, if any, main bulletins, and variations between the 2 powers indisputably may not be resolved. Instead, one professional stated, Biden is having a look towards “managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open.”
The schedule comprises no scarcity of adverse problems.
Differences within the already sophisticated U.S.-Chinese dating have handiest sharpened within the remaining 12 months, with Beijing bristling over new U.S. export controls on complex generation; Biden ordering the shooting down of a Chinese undercover agent balloon after it traversed the continental United States; and Chinese anger over a stopover within the U.S. by way of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen previous this 12 months, amongst different problems. China claims the island as its territory.
Biden will additionally most likely press Xi on the usage of China’s affect on North Korea, all through heightened nervousness over an higher tempo of ballistic missile exams by way of North Korea in addition to Pyongyang providing munitions to Russia for its conflict 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 will have to now not take motion that would result in enlargement of the Israel-Hamas war. His management believes the Chinese, a large purchaser of Iranian oil, have substantial leverage with Iran, which is a significant backer of Hamas.
Biden and Xi remaining met just about a 12 months in the past on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. In the just about three-hour assembly, Biden objected without delay to China’s ”coercive and increasingly more 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 assembly comes because the United States braces for a doubtlessly bumpy 12 months for U.S.-Chinese relations, with Taiwan set to hold a presidential election in January and the U.S. preserving its personal presidential election subsequent 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 officers additionally famous that Biden is decided to revive military-to-military communications that Beijing in large part 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 officers additionally stated Biden would underscore U.S. dedication to the Philippines, following a up to date episode through which Chinese ships blocked and collided with two Filipino vessels off a contested shoal within 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 impression to be sparsely taking into account safety for the assembly, declining to publicize the venue of the much-anticipated talks.
Thousands of other people protesting local weather destruction, company practices, the Israel-Hamas conflict and different problems are anticipated to descend on San Francisco all through the summit.
San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott stated his division expects a number of protests an afternoon however does not know which of them will materialize the place and when. He stated the town respects other people’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 contributed reporting.