The White House is working to arrange a face-to-face meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping next month in San Francisco, US officials say, but they and Biden warn that plans are still uncertain.
The Biden team has been working for months to try to get the two leaders together as a centerpiece event during the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum to be held in San Francisco from Nov 11 to 17.
But Biden and US officials cautioned that the time and location of a meeting and items for discussion have not been nailed down. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that plans for the San Francisco summit were “pretty firm.” “There is no such meeting set up, but it is a possibility,” Biden told reporters after making remarks about the US economy on Friday at the White House.
US officials see a meeting as essential to help cool a relationship that has grown testy in recent years, with tensions rising over Taiwan and a Chinese military buildup in the South China Sea.
The Chinese cut off cross-military communications used to de-escalate conflict between the two countries after those ties were cut following an August 2022 visit by former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan that enraged China.
