The White House said on Friday that US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping would have a virtual summit on Monday to discuss methods to “responsibly manage” the rivalry between the two nations, as well as ways to collaborate where their interests overlap.
Officials from the United States and China announced last month that they had reached a tentative agreement to hold a virtual meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping before the end of the year, as part of an effort to maintain stability in one of the world’s most consequential and fraught relationships.
On Monday, November 15, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. will have a virtual meeting with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in Washington, D.C., according to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
“Following their phone conversation on September 9, the two leaders will address methods to appropriately manage competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, as well as ways to collaborate where our interests are aligned,” she added.
As Psaki put it, “Throughout, President Biden will make clear US intents and priorities, as well as be forthright and frank about our concerns with respect to the People’s Republic of China.”
President Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, had taken a harsh line towards China, starting with trade disputes with the country. Tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese goods were imposed by Trump, triggering retaliation from the Chinese government.
The Biden administration has maintained President Donald Trump’s stern stance while working more closely with traditional US allies to jointly put pressure on Beijing on a variety of issues, including human rights, Taiwan, Xinjiang, and Tibet, among others.
The United States’ commitment in the Indo-Pacific area, which has witnessed strong military actions by the Chinese, has also increased under Biden’s leadership.
Nonetheless, in a surprising announcement this week, China and the United States declared that the two nations would further up their climate cooperation. The United States and China are the world’s two largest emitters of CO2.
The declaration was made on Wednesday at the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, where the two major adversaries were meeting.
It was in September when Biden and Xi talked over the phone for around 90 minutes, which was the most recent communication between the two leaders.
In February, the two leaders chatted on the phone for two hours, marking their first phone conversation since Biden took office in January of this year.
After a lengthy, six-hour meeting in Switzerland, Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi reached a tentative agreement to hold a virtual summit between Xi and Biden. The meeting took place just days after Beijing launched a record-breaking number of warplanes into Taiwan’s defence zone.
President Xi has not left China for the last 21 months, as a result of measures taken to restrict the country’s borders in reaction to the COVID-19 virus outbreak. He did not attend the G20 meeting in late October, nor did he attend the COP26 climate conference in Scotland this month, as he did in previous years.
