President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. —AP Photo/Evan Vucci
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will hold talks Saturday with China’s Xi Jinping on the sidelines of an international summit in Peru, a face-to-face meeting that comes as Beijing braces for Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the meeting will take place while the two leaders are in Lima for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. That will come just over two months before Trump’s inauguration.
Article continues after this advertisementSullivan was opaque about how Biden and administration officials will answer expected questions from Xi and his aides about the incoming Trump administration.
FEATURED STORIES GLOBALNATION DFA coordinating with US over detention of Garma, daughter GLOBALNATION Palace: Duterte free to surrender to ICC if he wishes GLOBALNATION Duterte dares ICC to begin probe immediately: 'Baka mamatay na ako'READ: Asian markets stutter with focus on China as Trump picks team
“Transitions are uniquely consequential moments in geopolitics. They’re a time when competitors and adversaries can see possibly opportunity,” Sullivan said. “And so part of what President Biden will communicate is that we need to maintain stability, clarity, predictability through this transition between the United States and China.”
Article continues after this advertisementDuring his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump promised to slap blanket 60 percent tariffs on all Chinese exports to the US, a move that would jolt the already tumultuous relationship between Beijing and Washington.
Article continues after this advertisementWashington and Beijing have long had deep differences on the support China has given to Russia during its war in Ukraine, human rights issues, technology and Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own. A second Trump administration is expected to test US-China relations even more than the Republican’s first term, when the US imposed tariffs on more than $360 billion in Chinese products.
Article continues after this advertisementThat brought Beijing to the negotiating table, and in 2020, the two sides signed a trade deal in which China committed to improve intellectual property rights and buy an extra $200 billion of American goods. A couple of years later, a research group showed that China had bought essentially none of the goods it had promised.
The White House has been working for months to arrange a final meeting between Xi and Biden before the Democrat leaves office in January.
Article continues after this advertisementSullivan traveled to Beijing in late August to meet with his Chinese counterpart and also sat down with Xi. After that, Sullivan indicated that there could be a final meeting between Xi and Biden at APEC or at next week’s summit of the Group of 20 top economies in Rio de Janeiro, which both leaders are scheduled to attend.
Biden has sought to maintain a steady relationship with Xi even as his administration repeatedly has raised concerns about what it sees as malign actions by Beijing.
US intelligence officials have assessed China has surged sales to Russia of machine tools, microelectronics and other technology that Moscow is using to produce missiles, tanks, aircraft and other weaponry for use in its war against Ukraine. The administration last month imposed sanctions against two Chinese companies accused of directly helping Russia build long-range attack drones used against Ukraine.
Chinese military assertivenessTensions flared last year after Biden ordered the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that traversed the United States. And the Biden administration has criticized Chinese military assertiveness toward Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.
On the campaign trail, Trump spoke of his personal connection with Xi, which started out well during his first term before becoming strained over disputes about trade and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a congratulatory message to Trump after his victory over Harris, Xi called for the US and China to manage their differences and get along in a new era, according to Chinese state media.
Biden, for his part, is expected in the meeting with Xi to focus on efforts to stem the flow of Chinese-manufactured chemicals used to make fentanyl, concerns about Beijing’s indirect support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, cybersecurity concerns and the importance of maintaining military-to-military communications.
Sullivan added that he expected that Biden would also raise an ongoing U.S. investigation into an alleged Chinese hacker operation targeting cellphones used by Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and people associated with the Harris campaign.
Saturday’s talks will be the third meeting between Biden and Xi during Biden’s presidency. They met in Woodside, California, last November on the sidelines of the 2023 APEC summit, and the leaders last spoke by phone in April.
Sullivan also announced that Biden while at APEC will hold a joint meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japan’s new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba.
That meeting is a follow-up on the historic Camp David summit Biden hosted in August 2023 with Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
Biden has nu dged the United States’ two closest Asian allies to further tighten security and economic cooperation with each other amid their shared concerns about North Korea’s nuclear provocations as well as China’s military and economic assertiveness in the Pacific.
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
The historic rivals have been divided by differing views of World War II history and Japan’s colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. —APacegame
READ NEXT Nations big and small bear witness to climate change US officer charged for leaking intel on Israel’s plan to str... EDITORS' PICK LIVE UPDATES: Typhoon Ofel BARMM election code, IRR violate PH Constitution – Escudero Palace: Duterte free to surrender to ICC if he wishes EASL: Jericho Cruz ejected in another San Miguel loss Typhoon Ofel keeps its strength over PH sea; Signal No. 2 up in 2 areas Tensions flare as Brosas, Duterte trade barbs in drug war hearing MOST READ PH fishers report latest Chinese ‘ramming,’ blockade at Escoda Duterte threatens to slap, hit Trillanes with mic at drug war probe LIVE UPDATES: Typhoon Ofel Ofel landfall today in Cagayan or Isabela, as new storm nears Follow @FMangosingINQ on Twitter --> View comments