The White House is making plans for a face-to-face meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in San Francisco next month as the two nations seek to stabilize troubled relations, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.
Ties between the world’s two largest economies have been strained due to a number of issues including Taiwan, the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, allegations of spying, human rights issues and trade tariffs, among others.
The newspaper, which cited senior unidentified US officials, quoted one of them as saying the possibility of a meeting was “pretty firm.”
Photo: Reuters
“We’re beginning the process” of planning, the official was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not comment specifically on the newspaper report. A spokesperson at the embassy said in an e-mailed statement that the two nations remained in communication and needed to expand “good faith” cooperation.
The White House did not have an immediate comment.
The meeting would follow other high-level engagements between the two nations that have seen visits by US officials to China, such as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen in July and US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo in August.
Blinken also met Chinese Vice President Han Zheng (韓正) in New York and US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan met Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) in Malta.
Biden and Xi’s last meeting was on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia in November last year, which was their first in-person meeting since Biden became president. They previously had five exchanges by telephone and videoconference after Biden took office.
China’s top security agency hinted last month that any meeting between Xi and Biden would depend on the US “showing sufficient sincerity.”
San Francisco is to host an APEC summit next month that Xi might attend.
Xi last month skipped a G20 summit in New Delhi that Biden attended.
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