President Joe Biden has confirmed plans to meet with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at next week’s G20 summit, where the pair intend to discuss national security concerns.
“I’m not willing to make any fundamental concessions,” the U.S. president said at the White House on Wednesday, noting that in his many meetings with China’s leader, he’s told him: “I’m looking for competition, not conflict.”
The two-day gathering of G20 leaders will take place on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali on November 15 and 16. Neither Washington nor Beijing has made public an exact date or time for the expected talks, which would be their first in person since Biden was elected president two years ago.
It would also come shortly after Xi secured a norm-breaking third five-year term as leader of China’s ruling Communist Party, and installed loyalists in top leadership positions, at a major political event last month.
“What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what each of our red lines are, understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, what I know to be the critical interests of the United States, and to determine whether or not they conflict with one another,” Biden said.
“And if they do, how to resolve it and how to work it out,” he said.
Biden and Xi’s fifth and last conversation took place by phone in late July, amid intense speculation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was planning to visit Taiwan, the democratically governed island Beijing claims is part of its territory.
The Chinese leader urged the American president’s intervention to prevent what was a largely symbolic but nonetheless high-profile trip by the most senior U.S. elected official to visit the island in a quarter century.
The White House argued it had no authority over the co-equal branch of Congress, and having failed to deter the California Democrat’s delegation from traveling to Taipei days later, Beijing reacted by executing several days of pre-planned war games and suspended eight channels of U.S.-China cooperation, on military, climate and other matters.
Taiwan would also be on the agenda of the talks, Biden said. Under the U.S.’s “one China” policy, it maintains only unofficial ties with Taiwan, doesn’t recognize its statehood but continues to support its self-defense capabilities.
“[T]he Taiwan doctrine has not changed at all from the very beginning—the very beginning,” the president said. “So, I’m sure we’ll discuss…Taiwan. And I’m sure we’ll discuss a number of other issues, including fair trade and relationships relating to his relationship with other countries in the region.”
The United States has no formal obligation to defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, although Beijing refuses to renounce the use of force to achieve a political union with the island and likely already expects American intervention.
Biden, meanwhile, has suggested on at least three occasions—the latest in May—that he would be willing to deploy U.S. forces to defend Taiwan from an invasion.
Asked whether he would tell Xi about his apparent intention to intervene, Biden said: “I’m going to have that conversation with him.”
Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, told reporters in Beijing on Thursday that China “attaches importance to the U.S. proposal to hold a meeting between the two heads of state in Bali.”
“We are willing to work with the U.S. side to realize mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, win-win cooperation, while at the same time resolutely defending our own sovereignty, security and development interests,” he said, noting that Taiwan remained “the core of China’s core interests.”
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Joanne Ou told a briefing in Taipei earlier the same day: “There is good level of mutual trust between Taiwan and the United States, and channels of communication are smooth.”
“We will continue to maintain close contact with the U.S. side regarding high-level U.S.-China interactions to keep abreast of the situation,” Ou said.
Putin to Be Absent
Also on Thursday, Russia’s embassy in Indonesia confirmed that President Vladimir Putin would not be attending the G20 summit, but reports suggest he could do so virtually. Moscow’s delegation would be led by Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, the embassy said.
Washington and other capitals had opposed Putin’s participation in Bali given his army’s invasion of Ukraine. As early as March, Beijing had backed his attendance and rejected calls to expel Russia from the group.
Colin Kahl, the Pentagon’s top policy chief, said Tuesday that he expected the Russia-China partnership to deepen, with both countries now more willing to publicly signal the development of ties “toward an alliance,” at least on the surface.
In practice, however, the Moscow-Beijing tandem may be more complex, Biden suggested at the White House.
“No, I don’t think there’s a lot of respect that China has for Russia or for Putin. I don’t think they’re looking at it as a particular alliance,” he said.
