Biden to meet Xi for final time this week as new Trump era in relations with China begins

Washington
CNN
—

President Joe Biden will meet for the final time this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping as he prepares to hand over power and the reins of the world's most important bilateral relationship to President-elect Donald Trump in January.

The meeting, scheduled for Saturday on the sidelines of a summit of Pacific leaders in Peru, serves as a bookend to the president's high-stakes attempts to position the United States against an increasingly assertive Beijing. This will be the third confrontation between the two leaders since Biden took office.

Unlike previous meetings, the Lima talks will not result in a long list of takeaways or expected outcomes. Instead, senior U.S. officials described the meeting as a moment of reflection between two men whose relationship began more than a decade ago during a long trip through China.

For all the reminiscing Biden and Xi may make, however, their final meeting will be overshadowed by last week's election results. Trump comes into office having promised a tough line on China and has already placed a series of China hawks in key posts before he is sworn in in January, auguring contentious relations in the years to come.

It remains to be seen how this approach will differ materially from Biden's, given that the current administration has taken aggressive steps to limit Chinese technology and strengthen U.S. alliances in Asia to counter Beijing.

By agreeing to meet with Biden during his lame duck period, Xi appears to be signaling his desire to maintain continuity and relative stability amid the transition at the helm of the United States.

Still, Biden administration officials acknowledged they could not predict what direction U.S.-China relations would take once Biden leaves office. But they maintained hope that the approach Biden took could also work for Trump.

This is a difficult and complicated relationship between the United States and China, and so whatever the next administration decides, it will have to find ways to manage this difficult and complicated relationship, a senior official said of administration.

Biden officials say maintaining strong communication channels and engaging in difficult conversations within the Chinese government has helped ease some misunderstandings between the two superpowers. But Biden will still defer a series of controversial issues to Trump when he leaves office.

Russia, cross-Strait issues, the South China Sea, and cybersecurity are areas that the next administration will need to think carefully about, as these are areas of deep policy differences with China, and I do not expect that let this go away, the official said.

The final meeting between the leaders of the world's largest economies comes at a precarious global moment. Since Biden took office, Xi has deepened his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin while maintaining close ties to Iran and North Korea, creating an anti-US network that is causing growing concern in Washington .

U.S. officials have also watched with concern as China conducts aggressive military exercises around Taiwan, raising fears that Beijing could move in on the self-ruled island in the coming years.

It remains to be seen how Trump addresses the new global reality. Trump tried to cultivate strong ties with Xi early in his first presidency, but their relationship deteriorated over trade disputes and the origins of Covid-19.

Trump and Xi spoke last week, CNN reported, as the Chinese leader seeks to determine what the next four years will hold for him.

As he builds his administration, Trump has selected advisers who advocate a tough approach to China, including Rep. Mike Waltz as national security adviser and potentially Sen. Marco Rubio as post of Secretary of State.

Trump also pledged to impose tough tariffs on Chinese imports to protect American industry.

The moves suggest a confrontational approach to Beijing will be in sight, making Biden's final meeting with his counterpart a time to discuss the way forward.

Biden has put communication at the center of the relationship with Xi, prioritizing regular phone calls and meetings to avoid any miscommunications. He also found areas of cooperation, including on fentanyl trafficking and climate change.

He has also poured money into U.S. attempts to compete with China on the global stage by investing in infrastructure in the developing world.

However, even before the meetings, shifting power dynamics on a global scale were highlighted. In Peru, Xi inaugurated a $1.3 billion port, an expansion of China's efforts to penetrate the southern hemisphere.

The Saturday meeting also has some symmetry to the last time Trump took office. Almost exactly eight years ago, on one of his final foreign trips, former President Barack Obama also met with Xi in Lima, just after Trump was first elected president.

Former Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes wrote about that 2016 meeting in his book The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House, writing that Xi asked Obama about the president-elect .

Toward the end of the meeting, Xi asked about Trump. Once again, Obama suggested the Chinese wait and see what the new administration decides to do during its term, but he noted that the president-elect had exploited Americans' real concerns about the fairness of our relationship. economic relations with China, Rhodes wrote.

Sitting across from Obama, he set aside the binder of talking points that usually shape a Chinese leader's words. We prefer to have good relations with the United States, he said, folding his hands in front of him. It's good for the world. But every action will cause a reaction. And if an immature leader plunges the world into chaos, then the world will know who to blame, Rhodes continued.