(Washington) American President Joe Biden “wants to have a constructive conversation” with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, his spokesperson said on Tuesday, specifying that their meeting would take place in San Francisco, where a summit of APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation).
Karine Jean-Pierre, White House spokesperson, indicated during a press conference that she would not “give details about this meeting which will take place […] next month “.
The meeting “will take place in San Francisco,” she said.
The American executive has so far refused to confirm this summit.
A senior White House official clarified that Beijing and Washington had an “agreement in principle” for a meeting of the two leaders and were “still working on important details to be able to finalize this project”.
This meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, on American soil, has been the subject of intense diplomatic negotiations for several months.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who has just made a rare visit to Washington, reportedly felt that the path to a meeting was “strewn with pitfalls”, state media reported.
The two leaders last saw each other in Bali (Indonesia) in November 2022.
Joe Biden has promised to provide ruthless competition to China in strategic, economic and technological matters.
The 80-year-old Democrat, however, regularly assures that he does not want a “cold war” with Beijing, and has said several times that to do so he needs to maintain personal contact with the Chinese president.
Relations between the two countries experienced a sharp rise in tension at the start of the year following the flight over American territory by a Chinese balloon, and the American president offended his counterpart in June by placing him in the category of “dictators”.