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When the US and Chinese presidents hold a summit ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum next week, Joe Biden will press Xi Jinping on the need to revive communications between the two powers’ militaries.
The White House announced on Friday that Biden and Xi will meet in the San Francisco Bay area on Wednesday before they attend Apec. The summit will be their second in-person meeting as leaders and comes one year after they met at the G20 in Bali, Indonesia.
US officials said the leaders would discuss a range of matters, including the prospect of reopening military communication channels that China shut last year after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan.
Officials stressed that the summit, which follows months of high-level engagements, did not mark a change in US policy towards China but a recognition that the powers needed effective channels of communication.
Xie Feng, China’s ambassador to the US, said the two presidents would have “in-depth communication on issues of strategic, overarching and fundamental importance in shaping China-US relations and major issues concerning world peace and development”.
US-China relations are in their worst state since the countries normalized diplomatic ties in 1979. Washington is concerned about issues including the Chinese export of ingredients for fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is now the leading killer of young Americans.
When the two leaders met in Bali last November, they agreed on the need to stabilize relations to reduce the chances of rising competition between the rivals veering into military conflict.
Beijing is critical of US efforts to restrain its military modernization through export controls designed to slow its progress in developing advanced chips for applications such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
The US has been vocal in raising concern about Chinese fighter jets flying too close to American spy planes and surveillance aircraft flown by US allies, including Canada, over the South China Sea.
“The president has made those points consistently, and he will do so again next week in San Francisco,” an official said.
“Intense competition requires and demands intense diplomacy to manage tensions and to prevent competition from verging into conflict,” the US official said. “Diplomacy is how we clear up misperceptions, signal, communicate, avoid surprises and explain our competitive steps.”
