China confirms Xi to attend G-20 and APEC
Newslooks- BEIJING (AP)
China on Friday confirmed President Xi Jinping will attend both the meeting of the Group of 20 industrialized countries and the gathering of Asian Pacific nations this month in his first major overseas trip since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Friday that Xi would meet with U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders on the sidelines of the twin summits, with the G-20 coming first in Indonesia followed immediately by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Thailand.
Xi has largely avoided foreign travel since the beginning of the outbreak while China adheres to its strict “zero-COVID” policy mandating lockdowns and quarantines.
The meetings come after Xi was granted a third five-year term as leader of the ruling Communist Party and amid simmering disputes with the U.S. and others over trade and territorial claims.
Competing claims to the South China Sea have also complicated Beijing’s relations with Vietnam, the Philippines and other regional players.
President Joe Biden will meet Monday with President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of next week’s Group of 20 Summit in Bali, Indonesia, a face-to-face meeting that comes amid increasingly strained U.S.-China relations, the White House announced Thursday.
It will be the first in-person meeting between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies since Biden became president in January 2021 and comes weeks after Xi was awarded a norm-breaking third, five-year term as the Chinese Communist Party leader during the party’s national congress.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement the leaders will meet to “discuss efforts to maintain and deepen lines of communication between” the two countries and to “responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, especially on transnational challenges that affect the international community.”
The White House has been working with Chinese officials over the last several weeks to arrange the meeting. Biden on Wednesday told reporters that he intended to discuss with Xi growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, trade policies, Beijing’s relationship with Russia and more.
“What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what each of our red lines are and understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, what I know to be the critical interests of the United States,” Biden said. “And determine whether or not they conflict with one another.”
A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the summit, sought to downplay expectations for the meeting , telling reporters on Thursday that there was no joint communique or deliverables anticipated from the sit-down. Rather, the official said, Biden aimed to build a “floor for the relationship.”
Biden and Xi traveled together in the U.S. and China in 2011 and 2012 when both leaders were serving as their respective countries’ vice presidents, and they have held five phone or video calls since Biden became president in January 2021. But the U.S.-China relationship has become far more complicated since those getting-to-know-you talks in Washington and on the Tibetan plateau a decade ago.
As president, Biden has repeatedly taken China to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and other ethnic minorities, Beijing’s crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong, coercive trade practices, military provocations against self-ruled Taiwan and differences over Russia’s prosecution of its war against Ukraine.
Weeks before Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president met with Xi in Beijing and the two issued a memorandum expressing hopes of a “no limits” relationship for their nations.
