Joe Biden, Xi Jinping to meet at 30th APEC summit today: What to expect?

US President Joe Biden will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco on the sidelines of the 30th APEC summit

US President Joe Biden is set to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Wednesday in San Francisco on the sidelines of the 30th APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit.

The leaders from the 21-member forum will meet at the summit.

The forum, which is dedicated to promoting trade, investment, and economic development among nations around the Pacific Ocean, will see a marquee meeting between Biden and Xi. However, the meeting comes amid the tension between the two countries following the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that had wafted across the US earlier this year. Following this, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called off a planned trip to China.

In May this year, a Chinese fighter jet was seen flying in front of a US reconnaissance plane over the South China Sea. The US military termed this as an "unnecessarily aggressive maneuver".

Just a month later in June, Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu refused to hold a meeting with US defence secretary Lloyd Austin at the Shangri-La defence dialogue in Singapore. On June 3, a Chinese navy ship cut across the path of an American destroyer in the Taiwan Strait.

The US and China have seen five months of government-to-government talks that have accelerated in recent weeks. In the November 2022 meeting in Bali, Biden met Xi in his first in-person meeting with the Chinese leader since becoming the US president.

During the 30th APEC summit, discussions on trade and Taiwan are likely to happen as White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the leaders would discuss the "continued importance of maintaining open lines of communication".

The two world leaders will also hold talks on how they "can continue to responsibly manage competition and work together where our interests align, particularly on transnational challenges that affect the international community".

An official from the Biden administration said that the US President is looking towards "managing the competition, preventing the downside risk of conflict and ensuring channels of communication are open".

Amid the increased pace of ballistic missile tests by North Korea, Biden is likely to press Xi to use China's influence on North Korea. The two leaders may also likely discuss that China should use its influence over Iran to make clear that Tehran or its proxies do not take action that could possibly lead to the expansion of the Israel-Hamas war. Biden's administration stated that China, a major buyer of Iranian oil, has leverage with Iran, a major backer of Hamas.