Joe Biden, Xi Jinping to meet face-to-face amid superpower tensions

Nusa Dua (Indonesia), November 14

US President Joe Biden will sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday for their first in-person meeting since the US president took office nearly two years ago, amid increasing tensions between the two superpowers as they compete for global influence.

Both men are coming into the highly anticipated meeting—held on the margins of the Group of 20 summit of world leaders in Indonesia— with bolstered political standing at home.

Democrats triumphantly held onto control of the Senate, with a chance to boost their ranks by one in a runoff election in Georgia next month, while Xi was awarded a third five-year term in October by the Community Party’s national congress, a tenure that broke with tradition.

“We have very little misunderstanding,” Biden told reporters in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he participated in a gathering of southeast Asian nations before leaving for Indonesia.

“We just got to figure out where the red lines are and…what are the most important things to each of us going into the next two years.”    

Biden added: “His circumstance has changed, to state the obvious, at home.” The president said of his own situation: “I know I’m coming in stronger.”

White House aides have repeatedly sought to play down any notion of conflict between the two nations and have emphasised that they believe the two countries can work in tandem on shared challenges such as climate change and health security.

But relations between the US and China have become increasingly strained during Biden’s presidency.