President Biden will meet Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of next week’s Group of 20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, a face-to-face meeting that comes amid increasingly strained US-China relations. It will be the first in-person meeting between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies since Biden became president and comes weeks after Xi was awarded a norm-breaking third five-year term as the Chinese Communist Party leader, per the AP.
The White House has been working with Chinese officials over the last several weeks to arrange the meeting. Biden on Wednesday told reporters that he intended to discuss with Xi growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, trade policies, Beijing’s relationship with Russia, and more. “What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what each of our red lines are and understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, what I know to be the critical interests of the United States,” Biden said. “And determine whether or not they conflict with one another.”
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the summit, sought to downplay expectations for the meeting, telling reporters on Thursday that there was no joint communique or deliverables anticipated from the sit-down. Rather, the official said, Biden aimed to build a “floor for the relationship.” As president, Biden has repeatedly taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities, Beijing’s crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, military provocations against self-ruled Taiwan, and differences over Russia’s prosecution of its war against Ukraine.
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