The meeting is taking place in Bali, Indonesia, on the eve of the G20 summit hosted by Indonesian President Joko Widodo. It was the first time the two men have met in person since Biden became president, though they have spoken by phone or video on five occasions in the past two years. Xi only recently began traveling abroad again after avoiding foreign travel since the Covid-19 pandemic began in January 2020. “I am committed to keeping the lines of communication open between you and me personally,” Biden said in an opening speech. “We share a responsibility to show that China and the US can manage our differences, prevent competition from turning into conflict, and find ways to cooperate on pressing global issues.” Xi said the two presidents needed to “chart the right course for the relationship.” “Nothing can replace face-to-face meetings,” he added. Speaking ahead of the meeting, a senior US official told reporters the Biden administration hoped the meeting would help the two sides “develop guardrails [and] clear rules of the road”. “Competition [should] don’t swerve into collision,” the official added. “President Biden doesn’t want that, and we know our allies and partners in the region don’t.” The meeting comes less than three months after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan angered China, which responded by launching extensive military exercises around the self-ruled island it claims as part of its sovereign territory. Beijing has also suspended a number of routine communications with Washington on issues such as climate change and judicial cooperation. The crisis in Taiwan has highlighted the growing chances that an accidental military incident could trigger a larger conflict between the world’s two largest economies and geopolitical powers. Recommended The two sides have also clashed over the war in Ukraine, which is expected to dominate this week’s G20 summit. While Beijing claims a neutral position on the conflict, it has backed Russia’s claim that the US-led expansion of NATO sparked the invasion. “After the start of the war in Ukraine, the US began to think that it should rapidly increase efforts to prevent China from taking over Taiwan,” said Wu Xinbo, a US expert at Fudan University in Shanghai. “The defense of Taiwan has become a buzzword in US domestic policy. This is very dangerous,” Wu said. “You don’t prevent a war, you cause a war.” Danny Russell, a vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, noted that “both sides seem to want the leaders’ meeting in Bali to turn down the heat on an overheated relationship.” “Washington is aware of the risk of an inadvertent incident quickly escalating into a crisis,” Russell added. “The best hope for slowing or halting the escalation of bilateral tensions — perhaps the only hope — is for these two men who know each other well and have built a solid relationship to talk openly about their strategic goals and concerns,” he said. Additional reporting by Kathrin Hille in Taipei
