WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014\u00a0President Joe Biden\u00a0and\u00a0Chinese President Xi Jinping\u00a0will meet Wednesday in California for talks on trade,\u00a0Taiwan\u00a0and fraught U.S.-Chinese relations in the first engagement in a year between the leaders of the world\u2019s two biggest economies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The White House has said for weeks that it anticipated Biden and Xi would meet on the sidelines of\u00a0the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit\u00a0in San Francisco, but negotiations went down to the eve of the gathering, which kicks off Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement the leaders would discuss the \u201ccontinued importance of maintaining open lines of communication\u201d and how the they \u201ccan continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, particularly on transnational challenges that affect the international community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Friday that Xi would attend APEC from Tuesday to Friday at Biden\u2019s invitation and would take part in the U.S.-China summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two senior Biden administration officials, who earlier briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said the leaders would meet in the San Francisco Bay area but declined to offer further details because of security concerns. Thousands of protesters are expected to descend on\u00a0San Francisco\u00a0during the summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng\u00a0met for a second day of talks on Friday\u00a0in San Francisco, the latest in a string of senior level engagements between the nations in recent months aimed at easing tensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yellen said that during the talks she emphasized that the U.S. seeks a healthy economic relationship with China. She called on China to crack down on private Chinese firms and financial institutions that the U.S. believes are skirting international sanction to do business with Russia and she raised concerns about Chinese export controls on graphite in other critical minerals. Graphite is a key raw material in electric vehicle batteries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yellen,\u00a0who visited China in July, said she accepted an invitation to make a return trip to Beijing next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is no substitute for in-person diplomacy,\u201d said Yellen, who added that she believed the two laid the groundwork for a productive meeting between Biden and Xi. \u201cDuring our discussions, we agreed in-depth and frank discussions matter, particularly when we disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Biden-Xi meeting is not expected to lead to many, if any, major announcements, and differences between the two powers certainly won\u2019t be resolved. Instead, one official said, Biden is looking toward \u201cmanaging the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open.\u201d The officials said they believed it would be Xi\u2019s first visit to San Francisco since he was a young Communist Party leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The agenda includes no shortage of difficult issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Differences in the already complicated U.S.-Chinese relationship have only sharpened in the last year, with Beijing bristling over new U.S. export controls on advanced technology; Biden ordering\u00a0the shooting down\u00a0of a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed the continental United States; and Chinese anger over\u00a0a stopover\u00a0in the U.S. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen earlier this year, among other issues. China claims the island as its territory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden will also likely press Xi on using China\u2019s influence on North Korea, during heightened anxiety over an increased pace of ballistic missile tests by North Korea as well as\u00a0Pyongyang providing munitions to Russia\u00a0for its war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Democratic president is also expected to let Xi know that he would like China to use its burgeoning sway over Iran to make clear that Tehran or its proxies should not take action that could lead to expansion of\u00a0the Israel-Hamas war. His administration believes the Chinese, a big buyer of Iranian oil, have considerable leverage with Iran, which is a major backer of Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden and Xi last met nearly a year ago on the sidelines of\u00a0the Group of 20 summit\u00a0in Bali, Indonesia. In the nearly three-hour meeting, Biden objected directly to China\u2019s \u201dcoercive and increasingly aggressive actions\u201d toward Taiwan and discussed Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and other issues. Xi stressed that \u201cthe Taiwan question is at the very core of China\u2019s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Chinese foreign ministry said this time Biden and Xi would focus on \u201cin-depth communications on the strategic, overall and directional issues of the China-US relations as well as major issues concerning world peace and development.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next week\u2019s meeting comes as the United States braces for a potentially bumpy year for U.S.-Chinese relations, with\u00a0Taiwan set to hold a presidential election\u00a0in January and the U.S. holding its own presidential election next November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island\u2019s decades-old de facto independence permanent, a step U.S. leaders say they don\u2019t support. Under\u00a0the \u201cOne China\u201d policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as the government of China and doesn\u2019t have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but it has maintained that Taipei is an important partner in the Indo-Pacific. Biden intends to reaffirm the U.S. wants no change in the status quo, one official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Disinformation experts testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee\u00a0have warned\u00a0that Beijing could aim to target the U.S., sowing discord that might influence election results at the local level, especially in districts with large numbers of Chinese-American voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Biden administration has sought to make clear to the Chinese that any actions or interference in the 2024 election \u201cwould raise extremely strong concerns from our side,\u201d according to one official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The officials also noted that Biden is determined to restore military-to-military communications that Beijing largely withdrew from after\u00a0then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi\u2019s visit to Taiwan\u00a0in August 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the while, the number of unsafe or provocative encounters involving the two nations\u2019 ships and aircraft have spiked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last month, the U.S. military released a video of\u00a0a Chinese fighter jet flying within 10 feet\u00a0(3 meters) of an American B-52 bomber over the South China Sea, nearly causing an accident. Earlier that month, the Pentagon released footage of some of the more than 180 intercepts of U.S. warplanes by Chinese aircraft that occurred in the last two years, part of a trend U.S. military officials call concerning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the top U.S. military commander, told reporters in Tokyo on Friday that\u00a0restoration of military-to-military contacts\u00a0is \u201chugely important\u201d to \u201censure there is no miscalculation\u201d between the sides. He said he conveyed his desire to restart the dialogue in a letter to his Chinese counterpart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The officials also said Biden would underscore U.S. commitment to the Philippines, following a recent episode in which Chinese ships\u00a0blocked and collided with two Filipino vessels\u00a0off a contested shoal in the South China Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Philippines and other neighbors of China are resisting Beijing\u2019s sweeping territorial claims over virtually the entire sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to be very clear,\u201d\u00a0Biden said in October. \u201cThe United States\u2019 defense commitment to the Philippines is iron clad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both sides appeared to be carefully considering security for the meeting, declining to publicize the venue of the much-anticipated talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thousands of people protesting climate destruction, corporate practices, the Israel-Hamas war and other issues are expected to descend on San Francisco during the summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
San Francisco Police Department Chief Bill Scott said his department expects several protests a day but doesn\u2019t know which ones will materialize where and when. He said the city respects people\u2019s right to mobilize peacefully but will not tolerate property destruction, violence or any other crime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014\u00a0President Joe Biden\u00a0and\u00a0Chinese Presi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2934"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2936,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2934\/revisions\/2936"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}