Huang Jingwen | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden will discuss a range of geopolitical challenges next week in his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping since he ascended to the White House two years ago. “We expect this meeting to be an in-depth and meaningful conversation between the leaders to better understand each other’s priorities and intentions,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters. The meeting between the two leaders will take place on Monday ahead of the G20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia. “I expect the president will be honest about some of our concerns,” added the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official said Biden will raise concerns about harmful economic practices, Chinese activity that “threatens peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and our longstanding concerns about human rights abuses.” Biden told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that he wants to address rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. “What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what our red lines are and figure out what he thinks are in the critical national interests of China, what I know are the critical interests of the United States.” Biden said. “And determine whether or not they conflict with each other.” The two leaders have spoken five times during Biden’s presidency and previously discussed a face-to-face meeting during a two-hour call in late July. Xi has remained close to home since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. He embarked on his first trip last month to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The senior Biden administration official declined to elaborate on Covid-19 mitigation measures for the meeting, adding that health protocols were still being worked out by advanced teams. The call in July came as Biden drew Beijing’s ire by saying the US would defend Taiwan if attacked by China. During the discussion, Xi told Biden not to “play with fire” on Taiwan. The White House has repeatedly said the comments do not represent a change in US foreign policy. At the time, Beijing also accused US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of further straining bilateral relations with a trip to Taiwan, which China considers part of its territory. Pelosi was the highest-ranking US official to visit the island in 25 years. In retaliation for Pelosi’s visit, Beijing imposed sanctions on her and launched live-fire military exercises across the island. Taiwanese officials called the exercises “highly challenging.” Tensions between Beijing and Washington, the world’s two largest economies, had already soared to new heights under the Trump administration. Former President Donald Trump has blamed China for a wide range of grievances, including intellectual property theft, unfair trade practices and the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping attend an event for business leaders inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on November 9, 2017. Nikolaos Asfouri | AFP | Getty Images Biden has previously said he will work more closely with allies to push back against China’s economic abuses. He also described Beijing as America’s “most serious competitor. Biden is also expected to raise concerns about Xi’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin as Moscow continues its months-long assault on its former Soviet neighbor. “I think the president will be honest and direct with President Xi about how we see the situation in Ukraine with Russia’s war of aggression,” the official said. “This is an issue that the president and President Xi have talked about many times in the past. They talked about it at length in March in their video call and then they talked about it again in July, so it’s part of an ongoing conversation between the two of them ,” the person added. Weeks before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin traveled to Beijing to meet with Xi and later issued a memorandum expressing a “borderless” relationship between their nations.
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Two weeks after Russian troops poured into Ukraine’s border, officials from the United States and China met to discuss the Kremlin’s war as well as other areas of mutual concern. A senior government official at the time described the talks, held in Rome, as “intense” and lasting at least seven hours. The official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had conveyed to China’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, that the US was concerned that Beijing might try to help Russia to ease global sanctions. “What I would say in general is that we have deep concerns about China’s alignment with Russia,” the official said. “The national security adviser has been forthright about these concerns and the potential impact and consequences of certain actions.”
