WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US President Joe Biden hopes his meeting next week with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, will lay the “foundation” for US-China relations, but will clarify Washington’s concerns, including on Taiwan, an elder the administration official said Thursday.
The White House announced that the two men would meet on November 14 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, their first face-to-face since the inauguration of the US president.
Relations between the two major world economic powers have been strained in recent months, among other things after the visit in August of the president of the American House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan, which claims its independence but which Beijing considers an integral part. . of its territory.
The senior US administration official said the meeting was not aimed at reaching specific agreements and would not lead to a joint statement.
“The president believes it is essential to lay the foundations for the relationship and ensure that there are rules of the road to govern our competition,” he said.
“I expect the president to be sincere about some of our concerns, including the activities of the PRC (People’s Republic of China) that threaten peace and stability around the Taiwan Strait and our longstanding concerns about human rights violations.” , he has declared.
The Biden administration also expects the two heads of state to talk about the Russian war in Ukraine and North Korea, he said.
(Reported by Nandita Bose, Michael Martina, Steve Holland, David Brunnstrom and Doina Chiacu, French version by Marc Angrand)
