Will Biden meet with Xi? "It is a possibility"

For several days, the media have been reporting on the possible meeting of President Joe Biden with the leader of China - Xi Jinping. This is supposed to occur in November during the APEC summit in San Francisco. Biden himself addressed these reports on Friday. "It is a possibility," he stated.

"There is no such meeting set up, but it is a possibility," president Biden declared, answering a question asked of him on Friday in the White House.

President Biden has partially confirmed previous press reports suggesting that the White House has already begun preparations for a summit between the two largest powers. According to the plan, the meeting would take place at the APEC summit in San Francisco in mid-November.

A series of visits and conversations between ministers from both countries were intended to lay the groundwork for the meeting. Among them were visits to Beijing by U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, as well as conversations between the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, and the U.S. President's advisor, Jake Sullivan.

Quoted by "The Washington Post", American officials allege that Beijing is interested in such a meeting and that a "rather strong" agreement has been reached on this matter. As the newspaper emphasizes, Xi's absence from APEC could be taken as a disturbing signal about the situation in China. Xi had previously missed the G20 summit in Delhi and skipped part of his schedule during the BRICS summit in Johannesburg.

President Biden has repeatedly expressed hope and expectation in recent months for a meeting with the Chinese leader. His aim is to stabilize relations between the two powers and ensure that their competition does not turn into conflict. Biden also admitted that he was disappointed by Xi's absence in Delhi. So far, the only face-to-face meeting with the Chinese leader during his presidency was a conversation on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali in 2022.