Biden and Xi meeting set for next week
President Biden’s highly anticipated meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping is set for next Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay Area, senior US administration officials said, setting up a test of whether the two men can slow a downward spiral in relations at a moment of heavy global turbulence, CNN reports.
The talks aren’t likely to produce a major thaw in the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship. Instead, the fact that the meeting is happening at all is viewed by White House aides as a positive sign after months of friction. US officials said the leaders hoped to develop a “framework” for managing successful competitive relations between the two powers, with the goal of clearing up misperceptions and avoiding surprises.
Still, the officials said Biden’s aides were entering the summit with realistic expectations and don’t anticipate a long list of outcomes afterward.
Facing a cascading conflict in the Middle East and a grinding war in Ukraine, Biden is eager to prevent another world crisis from exploding on his watch. Restoring a degree of stability to the Washington-Beijing relationship has been among his top foreign policy priorities, even as global tensions flare.
