US, China agree to work towards Biden-Xi summit

The United States and China agreed Friday to work towards setting up a meeting between the two countries’ leaders next month, after President Joe Biden met Beijing’s top diplomat at the White House. Biden has invited Xi Jinping to San Francisco in November for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit at a time of tense relations between the two powers. Xi has not yet confirmed he will come. After Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Biden and other senior US officials in Washington, the White House said both countries had agreed to keep up “high-level diplomacy” to try to smooth ties. The two sides “reaffirmed” that they were “working together towards a meeting between President Biden and President Xi Jinping in San Francisco in November,” the White House said in a statement. A senior administration official said the White House was leaving it to Beijing to confirm that Xi would come, but “we are making preparations for just such a meeting.” An official readout of talks between Wang and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan released by Beijing confirmed “both sides agreed to make joint efforts to realize a meeting between the two heads of state”. In a separate readout of his meeting with Biden, Wang was quoted as saying his visit was aimed at “working to stop the decline in China-US relations, stabilize them, and bring them back to the track of sound and steady development.”londonGBDESK//