U.S. President Joe Biden will discuss “guardrails” to the U.S.-China dynamic with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, during the duo’s virtual meeting on Monday evening (U.S. time), a senior U.S. administration official said. However, no specific deliverables are expected from the virtual meeting.
Mr Biden also plans to discuss divergences between the two countries – China’s actions towards Taiwan, most notably, but also human rights and China’s “coercive” tactics, in addition to areas of alignment, the official said.
“ …It's important to keep channels of communication open. That's why President Biden initiated this meeting. We want to make clear our intentions and our priorities to avoid misunderstandings,” the official told reporters on a briefing call on Sunday, while previewing the meeting.
“ The President will also make clear that we want to build common sense guardrails to avoid miscalculation or misunderstanding,” the official said.
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Monday’s interaction would be different from the two calls the two leaders have had since Mr Biden became President (most recently in early September), as per the official, because it would be a virtual, face to face (rather than voice only) interaction and because of the level of preparation going into the meeting.
The official listed China’s “coercive and provocative behaviour” with respect to Taiwan, human rights, China’s “extraordinary” state support of enterprises and its actions in cyberspace as among the issues on the anvil for Monday’s discussions.
“ This is an opportunity for President Biden to tell President Xi directly that he expects him to play by the rules of the road,” the official said.
The U.S. has been alarmed at the number of intrusions by Beijing into Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone in recent months. China, on the other hand, had objected to U.S. support for Taiwan. Tensions around the issue were evident in both sides’ summaries of a call on Friday between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.
On Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines via the AUKUS ( Australia-UK-U.S.) security partnership, the Biden administration official suggested they would see how Beijing raised the issue on Monday.
“It's certainly possible that we could hear from them on that,” the official said.
Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton had said over the weekend that it was “inconceivable” that Australia would not join the U.S. in any action taken to defend Taiwan from Chinese aggression.
The official was unwilling to commit to a position on whether Mr Biden would accept any invite to attend the Winter Olympics, scheduled to be held in Beijing in 2022.
The virtual meeting with Mr Xi is scheduled for 7.45 p.m. Eastern U.S. time.
