The two leaders will meet Nov. 15 in San Francisco on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
The meeting comes one year since they last talked face-to-face on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, and as global conflicts and direct tensions between Washington and Beijing have derailed communication and cooperation.
“We know efforts to shape or reform China over several decades have failed. But we expect China to be around and to be a major player on the world stage for the rest of our lifetimes,” a senior administration official said during a call with reporters Thursday evening.
“And we think diplomacy is how we clear up misperceptions, signal, communicate, avoid surprises and explain our competitive steps.”
Xi’s trip to San Francisco will mark the first time the Chinese leader has come to the U.S. in six years. In 2017, he attended a lavish dinner meeting at former President Trump’s Mar-A-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla.
The choice of the latest venue is practical, with the White House holding back from giving Xi a prestigious trip to Washington but signaling the administration’s commitment to righting a relationship that has veered off track.
A Biden official also sought to play up the sentimentality of San Francisco for the Chinese leader — who visited the city in 1985 on his first trip to the U.S. as part of an agricultural delegation.
The list of consequential bilateral and global security topics to be discussed are many. Senior administration officials are downplaying a long list of deliverables and focusing instead on what they view as achievable goals with outsized benefits.
This includes the resumption of a direct military-to-military line of communication that the Chinese severed in August 2022 following a visit by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Taiwan.
Having direct military-to-military channels is viewed as a key way to lower the temperature in the U.S. and China relationship that has been strained and plummeted over different crises.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
