Biden and Xi to hold ‘candid’ conversation in Bali next week

A senior administration official said Thursday that the meeting is important for Biden and Xi to “judge one another for themselves and hear one another’s priorities and attention directly.”

The meeting between Biden and Xi comes following the Chinese leader securing a historic third term as president late last month, cementing his power for the next five years. The two leaders are expected to address the most thorny topics of the relationship, including Taiwan’s security, human rights concerns and what the U.S. considers China’s “harmful economic practices.” 

Biden previewed his conversation with Xi in a press conference on Wednesday, in particular saying that he will address his views on U.S. commitments to Taiwan’s defense. 

The president has often said that he believes the U.S. should come to Taiwan’s defense if China were to launch an invasion and has frequently triggered the White House to attempt to clarify that such defense falls short of American military intervention.

Biden on Wednesday said he’ll personally talk with Xi about his view of the issue.

“I’m going to have that conversation with him,” the president said. 

Taiwan is the fiercest flashpoint in the U.S.-China relationship, and Beijing describes it as at the heart of its core interests.

Beijing views as an eventuality the subsumption of the democratic government in Taipei. The Chinese government cut off communication with the U.S. in retaliation for a visit from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to the island in August and launched military drills aimed at provoking the U.S. surrounding the Speaker’s visit to Taipei. 

The senior administration official told reporters in a briefing call on Thursday that Beijing’s decision to cut off communication, in particular in military-to-military channels, is on the agenda for Biden to address with Xi and has been part of conversations between the U.S. and Chinese sides as they prepare for the bilateral meeting. 

“I’m not going to get ahead of where we’re at with them on some of the ongoing areas of communication and cooperation, but our view is that all the lines really should be open,” the official said.

The White House said not to expect a joint statement between Biden and Xi, nor any deliverables from the meeting. The goal is to “set a floor” for the U.S.-China relationship, the official said.

“That to us means, No. 1, making sure that there are rules of the road, that there are ways that we bound the competition. The way we’ve heard this from our Chinese friends is stopping the downward spiral, is how they articulate this.”

Other issues expected to be high on the agenda include Russia’s war in Ukraine, the official said, where Xi has carefully balanced close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin but signaled concern over Russia’s ongoing military offensive and the risk of escalation, in particular over potential nuclear weapons use. 

“I think the president will be honest and direct with President Xi about how we see the situation in Ukraine, with Russia’s war of aggression and our concerns about what we are seeing and hearing from Russia,” the official said.

The president will further look to speak with Xi about cooperation in reining in and tamping down threats from North Korea and its nuclear provocations. 

“This is an area where China and the United States have a history of working together,” the official said. “This administration believes that we should not only be able to work together on this issue as a regional question, but one where the United States and China share a commitment to global nonproliferation norms, and this is something that China has historically stood to uphold.”