President Biden will deliver remarks and take questions from reporters following his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia. This meeting marked the first time the two world leaders have met face-to-face since Mr. Biden assumed office.
The bilateral meeting between the presidents of the world’s two largest economies began shortly before 5:00 a.m. EDT with a handshake and a commitment by Mr. Biden to “keep the lines of communication open” not only with Xi, but also between the two governments.
At the beginning of the meeting, he stated, “As leaders of our two nations, we share a responsibility to demonstrate that China and the United States can manage our differences, prevent competition from ever approaching conflict, and find ways to collaborate on urgent global issues that require our mutual cooperation.”
While the president and his Chinese counterpart have met and spoken numerous times over their careers, their encounter in Bali will be the first since Mr. Biden became vice president in January 2021. During his administration thus far, the two have conversed five times via phone or video call. The last face-to-face meeting was in 2017 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, while Xi’s last meeting with a U.S. leader, former President Donald Trump, occurred in 2019.
Mr. Biden and Xi were slated to discuss Beijing’s tensions with Taiwan, which the president has stated the U.S. would support in the case of an invasion by China, Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, and global economic security during their three-hour meeting in Bali.
Mr. Biden’s in-person discussions with Xi follow midterm elections in which the Democratic Party performed better than predicted. Democrats are expected to retain control of the Senate and possibly gain a seat if Sen. Raphael Walker defeats his Republican opponent Herschel Walker in the runoff election in Georgia next month. Even while Republicans are projected to win a majority of seats in the House, it will likely be by a slim margin.
Anita Dunn, a senior advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, stated in a Sunday interview on “Face the Nation” that Senate control is “hugely crucial” for the president’s agenda.