The White House plans a face-to-face meeting between Biden and Xi Jinping in San Francisco, aiming to stabilise US-China relations
US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping could meet in San Francisco next month as the two countries seek to stabilise their rocky relationship, The Washington Post has reported citing senior unidentified US officials.
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San Francisco will host an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November that the Chinese President may attend. The White House is making plans for a face-to-face meeting between the two leaders, hoping to fix US-China ties that have been strained in recent years due to several issues including Taiwan, the Covid-19 origins, spying, and trade tariffs.
In a report published on Thursday, the US newspaper quoted one of them as saying the possibility of a meeting was “pretty firm.” “We’re beginning the process” of planning, the official was quoted as saying by The Post. The Chinese embassy in Washington and the White House are yet to comment on this report.
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The Biden-Xi meeting would follow other high-level engagements between the two countries in recent months that have seen visits from US officials to China like State Secretary Antony Blinken in June, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in July and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in August.
Top US officials like Raimondo and Yellen have recently said the United States did not want to decouple from China but Beijing has expressed concern over US approval of arms sales and military financing to Taiwan.
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If the November meeting takes place, this would be the first between the leaders of the two largest economies since they met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali last November. During that meeting, both leaders had expressed hope they could get US-China relations back on track. However, after Washington ordered the shoot-down of a Chinese spy balloon in February, ties went downhill.
(With agency inputs)
