On the first day of President Biden’s trip to Indonesia, he held bilateral meetings with President Joko Widodo of Indonesia and Paramount leader Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China. (The White House/Wikimedia Commons)
President Joe Biden is planning to meet Saturday with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a trip to Lima, Peru, according to White House officials, in what amounts to a final meeting between two leaders of superpowers amid a period of significant transition that could alter that relationship.
Biden’s relationship with Xi has been among the most consequential of his presidency, but the final meeting comes as he is in the process of transferring power to President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened major tariffs and could take a more adversarial role with China.
Biden administration officials listed a number of topics that he plans to discuss, but looming over the meeting will be what Trump plans to do once he takes office on Jan. 20, a matter over which Biden has little influence.
“This is a tough, complicated relationship between the U.S. and China,” a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting. “Whatever the next administration decides, they’re going to have to manage that tough, complicated relationship.”
In his third in-person meeting with Xi as president, Biden plans to discuss the more open line of communication they have developed around potential military conflicts; their continued efforts combating the distribution of narcotics; ways they might address climate change; and challenges related to artificial intelligence.
Biden is also expected to voice concern about China’s support of Russia in its war against Ukraine, as well as Beijing’s military activity in the South China Sea. Biden also is planning to express his concerns about Chinese efforts to attack American-based cybersecurity networks.
Biden’s relationship with Xi dates back to when both men were serving as vice presidents, assigned to deal with one another in ways that their principals were not. They forged an early and unlikely connection, both institutionalists in diametrically opposed political systems.
They have been foils for one another during Biden’s presidency, especially when Biden has cast his foreign policy as an existential test of democracy versus autocracy.
In their first meeting during Biden’s presidency, which occurred in Bali in 2022, Biden tried to open a channel of communication. At the time, he arrived buoyed by Democrats’ better-than-expected results in the midterm elections.
This time, Biden arrives in the twilight of his political career, reeling after his party’s worse-than-expected results that have resulted in Republicans taking the presidency, capturing the Senate majority and likely holding their House majority.
Biden administration officials take pride in their ability to manage the U.S.-China relationship as well as possible under tough circumstances.
“His personal management has been important to any progress we have made,” the senior administration official said of Biden. “He and Xi have known each other over a decade … these engagements are not easy. The conversations are not easy. But as the president has said in the past, they speak candidly and forthrightly to one another.”
