President Biden will hold his first in-person meeting as president with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Monday at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
Why it matters: Both leaders will be heading to Bali after clearing major political hurdles: the U.S. midterm elections, which went better than expected for Biden; and the Chinese Communist Party Congress, at which Xi secured a third term.
- They'll also be meeting three months after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan.
The big picture: The White House expects the meeting to cover tensions over Taiwan, North Korea's recent missile launches, the war in Ukraine and climate change. Biden will also raise China's "human rights violations" and "harmful economic practices," a senior administration official told reporters.
- The White House doesn't anticipate any major announcements coming out of the meeting, though Biden will raise his desires to cooperate on climate change and open nuclear arms control talks, according to the senior official.
- "President believes it is critical to build a floor for the relationship and ensure that there are rules of the road that bound our competition," the U.S. official said.
- In a press conference on Wednesday, Biden also raised the importance of the face-to-face meeting with Xi to get a sense of his priorities and intentions, and lay out “what each of our red lines are."
Flashback: After Pelosi's visit to Taipei, Beijing announced it was severing channels of communication, including over climate change and military relations.
- The U.S. found that to be "deeply unfortunate," "inappropriate" and an "overreaction," particularly given the importance of military-to-military communication at a time of tensions, the senior administration official said.
- Biden will raise that issue with Xi and hopes to get all channels of communication operating again, the official said, adding that Beijing's response to Pelosi's visit and the transition period around the Party Congress had made it more difficult to communicate with Beijing in recent weeks leading up to the meeting.
