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Biden and Xi agree to first high-stakes meeting in Bali

 
US President Joe Biden will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping face-to-face on Monday

US President Joe Biden will meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping face-to-face on Monday Photo: AAP

The White House has confirmed President Joe Biden will hold talks on Monday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of a Group of 20 countries summit in Indonesia, their first face-to-face meeting since Biden became president in January 2021.

Mr Biden hopes to forge guidelines for competing with China but he will be honest about US concerns, including over Taiwan and human rights, a senior administration official says.

“The president believes it is critical to build a floor for the relationship and ensure that there are rules of the road that bound our competition,” the official told reporters in a call on the meeting.

US-Chinese ties have been especially strained since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August trip to Taiwan, the self-governed democratic island that China claims as its territory.

China is the world’s second largest economy after the United States.
The United States is looking to have stable relations with China despite tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and a host of other issues.

The senior administration official said there would be no joint statement from a meeting at which there are no expectations for specific agreements.

“I expect the president will be honest about a number of our concerns, including PRC (People’s Republic of China) activity that threatens peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, as well as our longstanding concerns about human rights violations,” the official said.

Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea would likely be discussed, the official said.

Biden said on Wednesday that he was unwilling to make any fundamental concessions when he meets Xi and that he wanted both leaders to lay out their “red lines” and resolve areas of conflict, including on Taiwan.

The White House sought to maintain a dialogue that China decided to cut off after Pelosi’s visit in such areas as climate and military-to-military communications, the official said, but there was no expectation the two leaders would be able to sit down and solve all their problems.

The United States had taken note of Xi’s “important” remarks about non-use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine after Xi agreed during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week that both leaders opposed their use, the official said.

For Xi, who cemented his leadership at a Communist Party Congress last month, the meeting with Biden takes place as China’s economy struggles with strict COVID-19 prevention measures.

Those measures, and Xi’s limited travel abroad since the pandemic began, have meant his previous five meetings with Biden were conducted virtually.

The US official said the two sides were discussing COVID-19 protocols for the meeting but did not elaborate.

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