US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a previous meeting (Photo: Reuters).
US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco, US, scheduled to begin on November 14.
According to sources, preparations for the meeting between the two leaders are gradually being completed.
There is little expectation of any breakthrough between the two countries at this summit due to long-standing issues in the negotiations. However, according to experts, this much-anticipated meeting could be a good sign for the US-China relationship and send a positive message to countries in the region that the world's two largest economies are working to resolve differences and ease tensions.
The White House confirmed on October 31 that the two leaders will meet in San Francisco. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that President Biden is expected to have a "difficult... but important conversation" with the Chinese leader.
The US confirmation comes after talks last week between China's top diplomat Wang Yi and key officials in Washington, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Officials agreed to "make joint efforts to achieve a meeting" between the two heads of state.
The US will host the APEC summit in San Francisco from November 11. Ahead of the planned meeting between the two US and Chinese leaders on the sidelines of the meeting, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi also met with President Biden during his three-day visit to Washington last week.
But according to a statement from China's Foreign Ministry, Wang Yi warned that "the road to the San Francisco summit will not be smooth" and that the two countries "cannot rely on autopilot" to make it happen.
Not much of a breakthrough?
Diplomatic observers largely remain pessimistic about the summit, which is the first face-to-face talks between Chinese and US leaders in a year.
"I don't expect a big breakthrough. I don't expect a big thaw," said Chong Ja Ian, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore. He also expressed hope that both sides would try to better understand each other's views and show a desire for further dialogue.
“There will probably be some more stable common expectations, there will be more dialogue to reduce conflict and reduce risk,” he added.
Relations between the two world powers have deteriorated rapidly in 2022, but both sides have made efforts to improve communication and increase cooperation in recent months, with top US officials making repeated trips to China.
Last week, an economic working group made up of officials from both countries held its first meeting in an effort to resolve tensions.
“A range of issues are likely to be discussed when the leaders meet,” said David Arase, a professor at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for China and American Studies. He expects both sides to call for the release of hostages and humanitarian aid for Gaza residents, and agree on efforts to reduce tensions in the Indo-Pacific region. “There is also the potential for cooperation in non-strategic regional areas such as climate change,” he added.
These were topics that Foreign Minister Wang Yi raised with US officials last week as they exchanged views on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine.
Arase also expects Washington to seek to push Beijing to pressure Russia, North Korea and Iran on issues that concern the United States. Beijing, meanwhile, may demand the lifting of economic sanctions imposed by Washington on China. But he said the efforts may not be very effective.
The meeting between Mr Xi and Mr Biden may not achieve any major results, he said, “but it could reopen the regular lines of discussion and consultation aimed at preventing worrying tensions and growing hostility in the bilateral relationship”.
Meanwhile, Associate Professor Alfred Wu at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore said that the topics that Mr. Xi and Mr. Biden will discuss depend on the time allocated for the summit.
When the two leaders last met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia in November 2022, they held three hours of talks on topics ranging from Taiwan to North Korea. So the upcoming summit will be significant, especially for countries in East Asia and Southeast Asia, said Wang Huiyao, founder of the Beijing-based think tank Center for China and Globalization.
Leaders in the region have long called for more stable US-China relations and expressed growing concerns about having to choose sides in the intensifying superpower rivalry.
“Just a photo of the two leaders shaking hands will send a big signal to the outside world,” Wang said, calling the summit “long overdue.” “The world needs stability, and when the leaders of the two largest economies meet, it will stabilize the world economy and send good signals to the rest of the world,” he added.
As preparations for the summit are nearing completion, an article in Beijing's People's Daily stressed that China and the United States must move beyond the concepts of competition and confrontation.
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