WASHINGTON (AP) November 10— President Joe Biden will meet Monday with 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 U.S-China relations, the White House announced Thursday. It will be the first in-person meeting between the leaders of the world`s two biggest economies since Biden became president in January 2021 and comes weeks after Xi was awarded a norm-breaking third, five-year term as the Chinese Communist Party leader during the party`s national congress.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement the leaders will meet to “discuss efforts to maintain and deepen lines of communication between” the two countries and to “responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, especially on transnational challenges that affect the international community.
“ 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.
“I don`t think you should look at this meeting as one in which there`s going to be specific deliverables announced,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. 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.
“I don`t think there`s a lot of respect that China has for Russia or Putin,”Biden said Wednesday. Biden was set to discuss threats from North Korea with the leaders of South Korea and Japan a day before sitting down with Xi.
Xi`s government has criticized the Biden administration`s posture toward Taiwan — which Beijing looks eventually to unify with the communist mainland — as undermining China`s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Biden said that he`s “not willing to make any fundamental concessions” about the United States` Taiwan doctrine. Asked about the anticipated meeting, China`s foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a Thursday news briefing that China was looking for “win-win cooperation with the U. S, while reiterating Beijing`s concerns about the U. S. stance on Taiwan. Beijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island`s decades-old de facto independence permanent, a crucial step about which U.S. leaders say they don`t support.
