The White House is reportedly strategizing a face-to-face meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, slated for November in San Francisco during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
This diplomatic maneuver is aimed at mending and stabilizing the relationship between the world's two most influential nations, Washington Post reported quoting senior officials within the Biden administration.
Though the official announcement is still pending, insiders claim that the plans are well underway, marking a concrete intention for a summit of this magnitude, the report said.
"It's pretty firm" that a meeting will take place, the report quoted an anonymous administration official as saying. A second senior administration official mentioned that Biden eagerly anticipates this meeting, albeit nothing has been definitively confirmed as of yet.
The finer details of this meeting are expected to crystallize after the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Washington in the coming weeks, further underscoring the seriousness of the dialogue.
Notably, this in-person encounter would mark the first face-to-face meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies since their rendezvous on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last November. During that encounter, both leaders underscored the importance of direct diplomacy, expressing their hopes for the restoration of amicable relations between the United States and China.
However, tensions escalated when President Biden authorized the interception of a Chinese spy balloon that had breached U.S. airspace in February, causing a further strain in bilateral ties.
In an effort to rekindle diplomatic relations, four high-ranking Biden administration officials embarked on trips 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. National security adviser Jake Sullivan also engaged in two days of productive talks with Wang Yi in Malta last month, characterized as "candid, substantive, and constructive" by the White House.
Nevertheless, President Biden's comments, made informally at fundraisers or in brief exchanges with the press, have occasionally irked Beijing. In June, he referred to Xi Jinping as a "dictator" who was unaware of the spy balloon incident and suggested that Xi was "very embarrassed" when it was shot down. Biden also noted China's ongoing "real economic difficulties."
Despite these ups and downs, Biden has consistently conveyed his anticipation of a meeting with Xi in the near future. During a news conference in June, he mentioned that such a meeting was on the horizon. Xi's absence from the G-20 leadership summit in New Delhi last month was met with disappointment from Biden, who expressed his desire to meet Xi eventually. In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Biden emphasized his commitment to "responsibly manage the competition" between the two nations, seeking to avoid conflicts and advocating for "de-risking," not "decoupling" from China.
While the Chinese Embassy in Washington has yet to issue an official statement, U.S. officials are actively pushing for the APEC summit as the venue for this crucial meeting. Despite China's keen interest in the encounter, the White House has decided to bar Hong Kong's top government official, John Lee, from attending the event. This decision stems from sanctions imposed by Washington in 2020 against Lee and 10 other Hong Kong and Chinese officials following the implementation of a repressive national security law by Beijing.
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