WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden hopes to lay out guidelines for dealing with China when he meets with Xi Jinping next week, but will be honest about US concerns, including Taiwan and human rights, a senior administration official said. The official said on Thursday.
“The president believes it’s important to create a floor for the relationship and make sure there are rules of the road that bind our competition,” the official told reporters in a call to the meeting.
The White House said Biden will hold talks with Chinese President Xi on Monday on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, their first face-to-face meeting since Biden became president in January 2021.
US relations with China have been strained, particularly since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August to Taiwan, the self-governing island republic that Beijing claims as its territory.
China is Washington’s main strategic rival and the world’s second largest economy after the United States. The US wants stable relations with Beijing despite tensions over Taiwan, the South China Sea, trade and other issues.
A senior administration official said no joint statement would emerge from any meeting with no expectation of specific agreements.
“I expect the president to be honest about our many concerns, including PRC (People’s Republic of China) activity that threatens peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, as well as our long-standing record of human rights abuses. Concerns”.
The official said Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea will likely be discussed.
Biden said on Wednesday that he was not prepared to make any fundamental concessions when he met with Xi, and that he wanted the two leaders to draw their own “red lines” and resolve areas of conflict, including Taiwan.
The official said the White House tried to keep the talks, which China decided to cut short after Pelosi’s visit, on areas such as climate and military-to-military communications, but there was no expectation that the two leaders would sit down. Will be able to solve it. All their problems.
The official said the U.S. had taken note of Xi’s “significant” remarks about non-use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine when Xi agreed during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Schulz last week that the two leaders would oppose the use of
Ukraine’s Western allies have accused Russia of threatening to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, although Moscow denies doing so, and China has refrained from criticizing Russia over the attack or demanding that Moscow withdraw its forces. What is avoided?
The United States and its allies believe North Korea is about to resume testing a nuclear bomb for the first time since 2017, and have accused both China and Russia of failing to activate Pyongyang’s missile and bomb programs. They have failed to properly implement UN Security Council sanctions. them
While both Russia and China supported tougher sanctions after North Korea’s last nuclear test, in May they vetoed a push by the US leadership to impose more UN sanctions on North Korea’s new ballistic missile tests. was given
Washington believes that China and Russia have the leverage to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear testing.
“This is an area where China and the United States have had a history of working together … there’s a track record of being able to work together. And so I think the president spoke with that spirit. Will discuss,” the official said. said.
For Xi, who consolidated his leadership at the Communist Party congress last month, the meeting with Biden comes as China’s economy struggles with strict COVID-19 containment measures.
Those measures, and the limited travel abroad by XI since the start of the pandemic, have meant that his last five meetings with Biden have been conducted virtually.
The US official said the two sides were discussing the COVID-19 protocol for the meeting but did not elaborate.
