Roving Periscope: Presidents Biden, and Xi to meet in mid-November, says White House
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Amid the 24-day-long Gaza war intensifying and the 20-month-long Russia-Ukraine conflict going nowhere, the Presidents of the world’s two largest economies—Joe Biden of the US and Xi Jinping of China—are meeting in San Francisco this month—in a bid to resolve their differences, including mistrust and trade deficits.
The two Presidents had last met in Bali, Indonesia, during the G-20 Summit in November 2022.
President Biden has also invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the event.
The US and Chinese Presidents will meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leadership Summit in San Francisco, scheduled from November 15 to 17, the media, quoting the White House, reported on Wednesday.
During a daily news conference, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked about the two leaders’ meeting, said, “The President is looking forward to it. And that, I think should answer your question.”
Replying to questions, she said: “Look, what I’m saying is that we’re aiming to have a constructive conversation, a meeting between the leaders in San Francisco in November. That’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to have a constructive conversation in San Francisco.”
But, as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi noted last week, the road to their bilateral ties is unlikely to be smooth. Even the US has now confirmed it.
Jean-Pierre pointed out that the Biden Administration’s approach to improving relations with China remains unchanged. “This is intense competition, right, we have said that we want to move forward with China. We understand that intense competition means intense diplomacy. That’s what you’re going to see. That’s what the President is going to be doing and having a tough conversation, but important conversation,” she said.
“I’m not going to get into any kind of, you know, decisions made on this. This is going to be about the diplomatic conversations. We’ve seen about three US secretaries go to China and have these diplomatic conversations. We saw Secretary Blinken, we saw National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan having important conversations, diplomatic conversations with their counterparts in China. This is an important relationship. Again, this is about competition. That’s what we want to see with China,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that “this is going to be an important diplomatic conversation that they are going to have.”
Tensions between the US and China have simmered for over five years. The two nations remained locked in an escalating trade spat since early 2018, raising import tariffs on each other’s goods. The Biden administration, which intercepted a Chinese surveillance balloon traversing the entire United States, accused Beijing of espionage. America implicated the Chinese in a cyberattack targeting the emails of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. The US also imposed restrictions on the export of advanced computer chips, and other frontier technologies, to China.
Besides, the two countries also got sucked into the Russia-Ukraine war and the increased Chinese meddling in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea.
That is why, the Biden-Xi face-to-face meeting is being viewed as more of an ice-breaker than any breakthrough in the two countries’ frozen bilateral ties.
The APEC is a forum of 21 Asia-Pacific economies. Its member economies are home to more than 2.9 billion people and make up over 60 percent of the global GDP. Its members are Australia, Brunei, Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, China, Peru, South Korea, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, the US and Vietnam.
From November 11 to 17, delegates of these member economies will convene in San Francisco for the APEC Economic Leaders’ Week 2023.
