President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Wednesday in California for talks on trade, Taiwan and managing fraught US-Chinese relations in the first engagement between the leaders of the world’s two biggest economies in nearly a year, Biden administration officials said. The White House has said for weeks that it anticipated Biden and Xi would meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, but negotiations went down to the eve of the gathering, which kicks off Saturday. Biden and Xi last met nearly a year ago on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. In the nearly three-hour meeting, Biden objected directly to China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions” toward Taiwan and discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other issues. The officials also noted that Biden is determined to restore military-to-military communications that Beijing largely withdrew from after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022.

Source: Nigerian Tribune November 10, 2023 16:00 UTC