US President Joe Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia at the G20 Bali Summit to discuss a variety of global and regional issues, including responsible competition, the White House said on Thursday, November 10, 2022.
Monday’s meeting will take place on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.
“The two leaders will continue to work together where their interests are aligned in their efforts to maintain and deepen communication between the United States and China as stewards of the competition, especially on transnational issues affecting the international community,” spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.
It will be the first time that the leaders of the world’s two largest economies have met in person since Biden became a president in January 2021. The meeting is also said to take place weeks after Xi was awarded a third term as leader of the Chinese Communist Party during the party’s national congress.
Biden will raise the issue of Taiwan and “human rights abuses and more, concerns and allies and partners’ concerns about China’s harmful economic practices,” according to a senior Biden official.
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The two leaders are also expected to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Their meeting will be the first since Biden became a president.
“The president believes that it is very important to build the foundation of the relationship and ensure that this is the rule of the road that binds our competition,” the official said.
Biden and Xi traveled together in the US and China in 2011 and 2012 when both leaders served as vice presidents of their respective countries, and they have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021.
But US-China relations have become much more complicated since introductions in Washington and after the issue of the Tibetan plateau a decade ago.
As president, Biden has repeatedly accused China of human rights abuses against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, Beijing’s crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, military provocations against self-governing Taiwan and differences in views and treatment to Russia on the issue of the war against Ukraine.
Weeks before Vladimir Putin launched his attack on Ukraine, the Russian president met with Xi in Beijing and the two issued a memorandum expressing hope for “borderless” relations for their countries.
