Biden-Xi set virtual summit on Monday to discuss tensions

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold their highly anticipated virtual summit on Monday evening as the two sides seek to ease tensions after a rocky start in US-China relations since Biden took office earlier this year .

The White House has low expectations for the video call between the leaders. Biden seeks to stress that the two nations must put in place safeguards in areas of conflict deepening deep in the increasingly complicated relationship between the two nations. White House officials said no major announcements are expected to come out of the meeting.

“I wouldn’t expect this to be meant to have any major deliverables or results,” said White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who added the two leaders would discuss how to manage country competition and cooperate in areas. where interests align.

This meeting will be the third engagement between the two leaders since February. It comes after the United States and China pledged this week at the UN climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, to increase cooperation and accelerate action to limit climate-damaging emissions.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi reached an agreement to hold the virtual Biden-Xi summit by the end of the year when they meet. met last month for talks in Zurich, but the two sides had not set a date.

The virtual meeting was offered after Biden, who spent a lot of time with Xi when they were vice presidents, mentioned during a September phone call with the Chinese leader that he would like to be able to see Xi again, according to the White. Housing.

Xi did not leave China during the coronavirus pandemic. White House officials have proposed a virtual summit as the best available substitute for the two leaders to have a substantive conversation on a number of issues that have strained US-China relations.

“We hope the United States will work with China to jointly strive to make the leaders’ summit a success and put Sino-US relations back on track for healthy and stable development,” the door said on Friday. -speak of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wang Wenbin.

Relations have not been without tension in recent months, with Biden making it clear that he views Beijing’s actions on multiple fronts as worrying.

The president criticized China for human rights violations against ethnic minorities in northwest China, cracking down on pro-democracy efforts in Hong Kong, and resisting global pressure to fully cooperate with investigations into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Tensions have also been exacerbated recently by dozens of Chinese military sorties near the autonomous island of Taiwan, which Beijing considers part of its territory.

The White House suggested Biden would raise concerns about many of these issues at Monday’s meeting. “There will be a wide range of topics that will be discussed and the president is certainly not going to hold back on areas that concern him,” Psaki said.

Biden, at the Group of 20 meeting in Rome and again at the United Nations climate rally, criticized Xi for not showing up at the summits, where world leaders discussed the way forward for pandemic and measures to mitigate the impact of climate change.

“I think it was a big mistake, quite frankly, for China… not to show up,” Biden said in Glasgow. “The rest of the world will look to China and say what added value have they brought? “

The two leaders participated in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) virtual meeting on Friday, where the leaders discussed efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic and support the global economic recovery.