The White House announced the upcoming meeting between United States President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the 2024 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru on November 16.
The two leaders are expected to discuss U.S.-China cooperation, particularly the resumption of military-to-military contact, as well as the efforts to combat the global fentanyl crisis and the threat of Artificial Intelligence (AI), said an official from the U.S. government.
Biden will express ‘deep concern’ over Beijing’s support for Moscow against Ukraine, as well as the deployment of North Korean troops to aid Russia.
He will also reiterate his ‘longstanding concern’ over China’s allegedly unfair trade policies affecting American workers.
Biden is also expected to raise Beijing’s increased military activities around Taiwan and the South China Sea while emphasizing the importance of respect for human rights.
“Russia, cross-strait issues, the South China Sea and cyber are areas the next administration is going to need to think about carefully, because those are areas of deep policy difference with China, and I don’t expect that will disappear,” said the U.S. official.
The last in-person meeting between the two leaders happened a year ago on the sidelines of the APEC summit in California.
This is possibly the last meeting of Biden and Xi ahead of the inauguration of United States President-elect Donald Trump in January 2025.
