President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet one-on-one with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the San Francisco Bay area next week, senior White House administration officials said on Friday.
The face-to-face meeting on Nov. 15 will be first time the two leaders have met in a year.
The meeting will be Xi's first trip to the United States in six years, and the first he has made since the COVID-19 pandemic, which likely originated in China.
A senior official in the Biden administration told reporters on the condition of anonymity that China was convinced the U.S. was in decline before President Biden took office, but much has changed.
The official said that the U.S. is going into this meeting confident in its approach as the U.S. sees competition, but not conflict, with China.
The Biden administration said recent major investments, such as the Inflation Reduction Act, are allowing the administration to focus on high-level diplomacy.
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Issues the Biden administration says it could seek cooperation with China on include addressing climate change and the opioid epidemic.
Election interference, China's role in wars in Ukraine and Israel, and China's threats toward Taiwan could all be potential sticking points. The U.S. has applied pressure on China not to back Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. has also warned of China advancing on Taiwan, even as the United States has backed a One China policy.
U.S. officials stated that their goal is to stabilize the nations' relationship, remove areas of misunderstanding and open new lines of communication.
One example of how these lines of communication broke down was earlier this year when U.S. officials said a spy balloon originating from China drifted across U.S. airspace. The balloon was eventually shot down off the South Carolina coast once it posed no threat to those on the ground.
The balloon incident caused Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his trip to China.
The APEC Summit will draw leaders from nearly two dozen nations bordering the Pacific Ocean. While Russia is among the nations part of APEC, it's unknown whether President Vladimir Putin will be in attendance at next week's summit.
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