The White House said President Joe Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping face to face-in high-stakes diplomacy for the first time in a year to reduce tensions between the two countries.
The widely observed interaction could span hours and involve teams of officials from Beijing and Washington on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the San Francisco Bay area.
According to senior Biden administration sources, it would include global issues ranging from the Israel-Hamas conflict to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, North Korea's connections with Russia, Taiwan, the Indo-Pacific, human rights, fentanyl, artificial intelligence, and "fair" trade and economic relations.
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"Nothing will be held back; everything is on the table," said one US official at a press conference, who declined to be identified.
"We're certain about this. We know that efforts over several decades to influence or reform China have failed. But we expect China to be a big role on the global stage for the rest of our lives."
Officials in the United States, who have been lobbying for the meeting for more than a year, believe Beijing is actively seeking to undercut US policy worldwide.
In a statement issued on Friday, the White House confirmed the meeting date. On Friday, the Chinese foreign ministry said that Xi would visit the United States from November 14 to 17, attend the APEC summit and meet with Biden.
For the first time since November 2022, Biden and Xi will converse across ideological divides. After Biden ordered the shooting down of a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that transited US skies in February, the US president's administration orchestrated a diplomatic blitz to restore strained relations.
The main outcome is anticipated to be more diplomacy, with commitments to talk more about key topics such as environment, global health, economic stability, counter-narcotics operations, and possibly the return of some military-to-military channels after a high-level freeze.
According to two additional sources briefed on the conversations, both parties may offer little goodwill gestures to smooth the talks.
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