White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed at her daily White House briefing Wednesday that President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will hold a virtual meeting by the end of the year. The video above shows her discussing the future meeting.
“We continue to believe that leader level engagement is an important part of our effort to responsibly manage the competition with China, especially given the coalescing of power in Chinese leadership,” Psaki said. “We’re still working through what that would look like, when and of course, the final details, so we don’t have quite have them yet.”
The announcement came after White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi met for six hours in Zurich Wednesday.
“Their meeting followed up on the September 9 phone call between President Biden and President Xi in which the leaders discussed the importance of maintaining open lines of communication to responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” the White House said in a press release. “Mr. Sullivan made clear that while we will continue to invest in our own national strength and work closely with our allies and partners, we will also continue to engage with the PRC at a senior level to ensure responsible competition,” the White House said.
According to the press release, Sullivan brought up areas of concern the U.S. had with China, “including actions related to human rights, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, and Taiwan”.
Before the announcement of the future meeting between Biden and Xi, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday reiterated concerns that Beijing was undermining regional peace and stability with its “provocative” action.
“We strongly urge Beijing to cease its military, diplomatic and economic pressure and coercion directed at Taiwan,” Blinken said. “We will continue to stand with friends, with allies to advance shared prosperity, shared security, shared values, as well as continue to deepen our ties with a democratic Taiwan.”
