By Spy Uganda Correspondent
US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping to hold a virtual summit next week, with both sides indicating they will not give ground on flashpoint issues such as Taiwan.
The Chinese president will hold a virtual meeting with Biden on Tuesday morning local time, Monday evening in the US, reported China’s state broadcaster CCTV.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said, “the two leaders will discuss ways to responsibly manage the competition” between the two countries “as well as ways to work together where our interests align” in a statement on Friday.
The meeting will be the third engagement between the two leaders since February.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China hopes “the US will work together with China” to “bring China-US ties back to the right track of sound and stable development.”
Deteriorated Relations
Relations between the world’s two largest economies have recently deteriorated, in particular over Taiwan, a self-ruling democracy claimed by China, which last month made a record number of air incursions near the island.
Washington has repeatedly signaled its support for Taiwan in the face of Chinese aggression, but the United States and China reached a surprise agreement on climate at a summit in Glasgow.
The two countries pledged to increase their cooperation and speed up action to rein in climate-damaging emissions at the UN climate talks.
The virtual meeting was proposed after Biden mentioned during a September phone call with the Chinese leader that he would like to be able to see Xi again, according to the White House.
‘Most Complex Relationship’
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday had a preparatory phone call for the summit.
“I’ve noted repeatedly, over the past 10 months, that the relationship with China is among the most consequential and also most complex that we have,” Blinken said on Friday.
“It has different elements in it, some cooperative, some competitive and others adversarial and we will manage all three at the same time.”
Wang told his counterpart that “the two sides should meet each other halfway” at the Xi-Biden meeting, the Chinese foreign ministry said.
Biden spent a substantial amount of time with Xi when the two were vice presidents.
