President Biden will seek to reduce mounting U.S.-China trade and political tensions during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a summit of Pacific Rim leaders in San Francisco next week, the White House confirmed Friday.
The meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 14 on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) summit will be the two leaders’ first face-to-face talk since the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia a year ago. The 12 months since Bali have seen bilateral relations face intense strains on a range of fronts, highlighted by the downing of a Chinese surveillance balloon off the U.S. Atlantic coast by American fighter jets in February.
“The leaders will also discuss how the United States and the PRC can continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, particularly on transnational challenges that affect the international community,” the statement said.
Since the Bali meeting and the balloon furor, the Biden administration has shifted its policy toward Beijing by seeking closer engagement and accommodation amid fears the two nations were drifting toward war.
The Biden-Xi talks will focus on the strategic direction of U.S.-China relations and the president will seek to open more lines of communication, including renewed military-to-military ties that Beijing shut off a year ago, senior administration officials told reporters in a pre-summit briefing.
One official said the president and his advisers are “clear-eyed” in dealing with Beijing.
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“We know efforts to shape or reform China over several decades have failed,” the official said.
“But we expect China to be around and to be a major player on the world stage for the rest of our lifetimes. And we think diplomacy is how we clear up these perceptions, signal, communicate, avoid surprises, and explain our competitive steps.”
Mr. Xi is expected to give his own address to the APEC gathering, focused on “deepening Asia-Pacific cooperation and driving regional and global growth,” China’s state-controlled press reported Friday.
Full agenda
Among the major topics to be discussed by the U.S. side in the Xi-Biden one-on-one meeting will be the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Increased tension over Taiwan also is expected to be raised as part of what officials said will be a range of contentious issues, including feared Chinese interference in Taipei’s January presidential election.
“It’s something we’re extremely concerned about and, of course, we’ll plan on delivering that message again,” one official said of the election interference.
“We’re also quite concerned by a ramping up of military activities around Taiwan in ways that are unprecedented, that are dangerous, that are provocative,” the official said.
China views Taiwan as its territory, and Mr. Xi has ordered his military to be ready to use force in the coming years to retake the island.
Chinese military activities have ramped up around Taiwan in the past several months, including large-scale war games that included missile firings near the island.
This week, China sailed an aircraft carrier strike group led by the Shandong down the Taiwan Strait.
The passage came a week after U.S. and Canadian warships transited the 100-mile-wide strait.
On military relations, the officials said restoring communications with China is a major goal of the summit.
“We’ve raised the importance of [military-to-military] channels in nearly every conversation we’ve had with the Chinese because it is absolutely critical,” a second official said.
“And when we’re talking about managing risks about avoiding conflict, this is exactly the sort of communication we need to be having, both at senior levels of our military, but also operator to operator,” the official said.
On the Middle East, Mr. Biden is expected to urge Mr. Xi to use China’s growing influence on Iran to avoid escalating the current Hamas-Israel clash into a full-blown regional war.
“I think with respect to the Middle East, the president will underscore our desire for China to make clear in its burgeoning relationship with Iran, that is essential that Iran not seek to escalate or spread violence in the Middle East and to warn quite clearly that if Iran undertakes provocative actions anywhere that the United States is prepared to respond and respond promptly,” the first official said.
China’s human rights record and North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats, along with Pyongyang’s supply of military goods to Russia, also will be raised, the officials said.
Recent Chinese clashes with the Philippines over claims in the South China Sea will also be discussed. Chinese coast guard vessels have harassed Philippine resupply ships at one flashpoint site in recent months.
Lowered expectations
With a packed agenda, U.S. officials sought to play down the likelihood of a major breakthrough in U.S.-China relations from the Biden-Xi meeting.
“The goals here are really about managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open,” one of the officials briefing on background said.
The exact location of the meeting has not been disclosed over security concerns, the officials said.
Human rights protesters and other activists are expected to turn out for the Chinese leader’s visit.
Officials defended the shift to a more conciliatory approach to Beijing, which has featured a number of visits by top U.S. officials to Beijing.
“Our approach is steady and consistent. We’re not stepping back from our interests and values. We’re moving forward,” the first official said.
In the past year, the administration has imposed new restrictions on outbound investment and updated export controls on semiconductors, and semiconductor manufacturing equipment, the official said, in an effort to deny key U.S. high technology to China’s commercial and defense sectors.
Militarily, the administration has continued to conduct “freedom of navigation operations” by Navy warships and flights by surveillance aircraft in the South China Sea and elsewhere in the region, operations that Beijing routinely attacks.
Mr. Biden faces bipartisan pressure from Capitol Hill to take a tough line on Beijing.
On Capitol Hill, the chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party detailed 10 basic requests the president should make to the Chinese leader during the summit, including the release of all Americans wrongfully detained in China; an end to shipments of fentanyl; a halt to all Chinese military ’near collisions and intercepts’ of U.S. ships and aircraft; and an end to all military operations in Taiwan’s airspace.
“Despite repeated concessions from Washington over the past year, Beijing has made none and continues to threaten core U.S. interests,” panel chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher, Wisconsin Republican, told The Washington Times.
“At this week’s meeting, the administration should walk away from the table if [China] proves unwilling to address even the most basic issues in the relationship,” Mr. Gallagher said. “ … Short of clear commitments on this low-hanging fruit, APEC needs to be the end of the road for zombie engagement” with Beijing.
• Bill Gertz can be reached at bgertz@washingtontimes.com.
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