United States President Joe Biden on Tuesday proposed to hold an in-person meeting while on a telephone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but failed to secure the agreement, Financial Times reported.
The reason behind Xi Jinping’s refusal is the constraint in the US and China relationship, the report said. Xi insisted that Washington should first adopt a less strident tone toward Beijing. Another reason cited by a US official was that the rebuttal was due to the ongoing concerns of COVID-19.
President Xi Jinping has not left China since the first wave of the Covid outbreak early last year. However, the G20 summit, that has been scheduled for October in Italy is being talked about as the possible venue of fact-to-meeting between China and the US.
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A US official briefing before the conversation began called it a test to repair the deteriorating relations of both the countries through direct top-level engagement. The call was their first in seven months where they discussed the need to ensure that competition between the world's two largest economies does not veer into conflict.
"Xi apparently intimated that the tone and atmosphere of the relationship needed to be improved first," Hindustan times said, quoting its sources.
The White House subsequently announced no plans to follow on but said that it will keep the channels open for communication.
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Xi had told Biden that U.S. policy on China imposed "serious difficulties" on relations, but added that both sides agreed to maintain frequent contact and ask working-level teams to step up communications, a Chinese media stated.
