President Joe Biden will depart Washington later Tuesday for San Francisco where he will host the leaders of the 21-country Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
The gathering is overshadowed by a planned face-to-face meeting between Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping – the first such meeting in a year and broadly seen as a high-stakes effort to curb rising tensions between the world’s two superpowers.
The White House says the leaders will discuss key issues within the bilateral relationship, including how Washington and Beijing can continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where their interests align.
Biden will meet Xi for a summit within a summit on Wednesday with the White House framing the meeting as an opportunity to strengthen open lines of communication and managing competition between the world’s largest economies in a manner that does not veer into conflict.
White House National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan says, “The way we achieve that is through intense diplomacy. That’s how we clear up misperceptions and avoid surprises. That’s how we work together, where and when our interests overlap and deliver on key priorities for the American people. And that’s why in recent months, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with Director Wang Yi three times. And it’s why our Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Commerce all went to Beijing. It’s also why China, for its part, sent its vice president, its Foreign Minister and other senior officials here to the United States in recent months.”
Focus areas include managing economic competition and trade disputes; and re-opening direct military-to-military lines of communication which were suspended after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan last year.
The relations soured further after the US shot down what it believed was a Chinese spy balloon in February.
Geo-political tensions from the war in Ukraine to the war in Gaza are also on the agenda as are joint efforts to combat the illicit trafficking in fentanyl – a deadly synthetic opioid – and a key priority for the White House with over 250 000 Americans dying from fentanyl overdoses since 2018.
“We believe that there are areas where our interests overlap, like our efforts to combat the illicit fentanyl trade. There are also areas where we can more effectively manage competition, for example, by reestablishing military-to-military communications. And there are, of course, critical global issues that the two leaders will need to discuss, including Russia’s war against Ukraine and the evolving crisis in the Middle East. All in all, we’re looking forward to a productive meeting. President Biden has a long history with President Xi. Their conversation lines are direct, they’re straightforward. And President Biden believes that there is no substitute for a leader to lead or face-to-face diplomacy to manage this complex relationship between the United States and China.”
And with real concerns about the spillover of the Hamas-Israeli conflict into the Middle East, the US is seeking to press China’s influence on key actors in this regard.
“From our perspective, the PRC should share the interest of every responsible country that de-escalation rather than escalation in the broader, broader middle East should be the order of the day. So President Biden will make the point to President Xi that Iran acting in an escalatory, destabilising way that undermines stability across the broader Middle East, is not in the interests of the PRC or of any other responsible country. And the PRC, of course, has a relationship with Iran, and it’s capable, if it chooses to, of making those points directly to the Iranian government.”
China for its part pointed to talks that would be focused on issues of strategic importance including development and world peace. Mao Ning is a Spokesperson with China’s Foreign Ministry.
“China has viewed and handled the relations with the US under the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation proposed by President Xi Jinping. Major power competition goes against the trend of the times, and cannot solve problems facing the US and the challenges facing the world. China is not afraid of competition, but we do oppose defining the China-US relationship by competition. When it comes to concerns, the US should earnestly respect China’s legitimate concerns and legitimate right to development, instead of only emphasizing its own concerns and undermining China’s interests,” says Mao Ning, a Spokesperson with China’s Foreign Ministry.
The APEC Leaders’ Summit runs from Wednesday to Friday and focuses on creating economic opportunities for the 21-nation bloc in the Asia-Pacific region.
