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Opinion
Biden’s real reason for wanting to meet Xi at the Apec summit
- Joe Biden may well hope a meeting with Xi Jinping can boost his 2024 re-election campaign, given his poll numbers currently inspire little confidence
- China would be wise to take account of the fact the White House could have a new occupant this time next year
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Terry Su is president of Lulu Derivation Data Ltd, a Hong Kong-based online publishing house and think tank specialising in geopolitics.
It seems the much-touted meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping is set to go ahead at this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit in San Francisco, which takes place next week.
The US side has announced that the two sides have agreed “in principle” for the leaders to meet. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin sounded less unequivocal, saying “the two sides have agreed to work together for the meeting between the two presidents in San Francisco”.
The world is now expecting the meeting to materialise. It is clear that Beijing is inclined to agree to Washington’s request for their top leaders to catch up, even though the US does not appear to be letting up in the confrontational part of its “competition, collaboration and confrontation” policy towards China. Recall US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s statement that America’s relationship with China will be “competitive when it should be, collaborative when it can be, and adversarial when it must be”.
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