President Joe Biden wants his meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Monday in Indonesia to repair lines of communication and help establish “guardrails” to keep the superpowers from conflict, US officials said, reports BSS.
“We are in competition. President Biden embraces that but he wants to make sure that that competition is bounded, that we build guardrails, that we have clear rules of the road and that we do all of that to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict,” a senior White House official said.
The official, one of two briefing reporters ahead of the meeting in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 summit, said Biden has the backing of “allies and partners” for his approach.
“There is broad support for our determination to build the floor under the relationship to increase communications responsibly,” the official said.
The overview of US goals for the talks with Xi reflects both the magnitude of the challenge in stabilising the US-China relationship and the low expectations.
There have been five phone and video exchanges with Xi since Biden took office at the start of 2021, but Monday's talks will be their first in person since 2017, when Biden was vice president to Barack Obama. The last time Xi met a US leader was Donald Trump in 2019.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
