President Joe Biden will attend Monday night's virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping from a "point of strength," owing to the passage of the infrastructure package, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
At 7:45 pm, Biden and Xi will meet. Monday night in Washington and Tuesday, 8:45 am in Beijing. According to Psaki, the meeting will take many hours. Biden will attend the meetings in excellent standing because he spent his first ten months in the office improving ties with longstanding US allies.
Biden's approach to China will be tested
Biden has also been hampered by sagging poll numbers and the aftermath of his botched Afghanistan withdrawal. The virtual meeting with China on Monday aims to ease tensions over Taiwan and other problem areas. Both sides, though, have shown little willingness to compromise, Daily Mail reported.
Since Biden's inauguration in January, the two leaders have spoken on the phone twice, but with Xi unwilling to go overseas due to the pandemic, an online video meeting is the only option short of an in-person summit.
The dispute over Taiwan, a self-governing democracy claimed by China, has dominated the build-up, and Biden's aides have presented the summit as an opportunity to help prevent tensions from worsening.
Per Big News Network, the two presidents had already spoken on the phone twice, the most recent call taking place in September. The meeting will test Biden's approach, which is to try to work with China on areas where there are potential compromises, such as the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, while raising concerns about China's human rights and trade practices and military activity in the Asia-Pacific region.
Tensions between the United States and China on various topics, which grew under the Trump administration, are still present in the Biden administration due to disputes on multiple fronts.
Will Joe Biden press Xi Jinping about the COVID-19 origin
President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will hold a virtual meeting Monday night, but it's unclear whether Biden would urge Xi to be truthful about the COVID-19 pandemic's origins, given rumors that his son Hunter Biden still owns a Chinese investment fund with state-owned enterprises.
On a conference call with reporters, White House officials avoided mentioning the pandemic that has killed over 762,000 Americans or the apparent conflict of interest with the first son's business interests, instead emphasizing a desire to foster "responsible competition" and uphold a "rules-based international order."
After an exchange of opening niceties between the presidents, much of the meeting will take place behind closed doors, minimizing Biden's vulnerability after Chinese officials used a March summit in Alaska to gain propaganda points by accusing the US of hypocrisy on cybersecurity and human rights.
Biden wants to "create logical guardrails to minimize mistake or misunderstanding to sustain responsible competition," according to the official.
Although COVID-19 and China's refusal to allow an independent investigation into the pandemic's origins were not discussed during the preview call - scientists, diplomats, and politicians continue to debate whether the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology - the official expressed a desire to press Beijing to do more to combat global warming.
Biden seldom discusses pressuring China to cease withholding early COVID-19 data. In August, US intelligence agencies concluded that the virus released from the Wuhan facility was "possible." The virus may have also developed organically from animals, according to another common theory. After listening to a query from The NY Post last week, Biden turned and walked away.
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