Biden and Xi set to meet later this month in San Francisco

US President Joe Biden “wants to have a constructive conversation” with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, his spokeswoman said on Tuesday, specifying that their meeting would take place in San Francisco, where an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC, summit will be held in mid-November.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told a press conference that she would not “give any details about this meeting, which will take place (…) next month”.

A senior White House official said that Beijing and Washington had an “agreement in principle” for the two leaders to meet and were “still working on important details to be able to finalise 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 recently made a rare visit to Washington, reportedly felt that the road to a meeting was “full of pitfalls”, according to a state media report.

The two leaders last met in Bali, Indonesia, in November 2022.

Biden has promised to compete ruthlessly with China on strategic, economic and technological issues.

However, he regularly asserts that he does not want a “cold war” with Beijing, and has said on several occasions that he needs to maintain personal contact with the Chinese leader.

Tensions between the two countries escalated sharply at the start of the year after a Chinese balloon flew over American territory, and the US President offended his counterpart in June by classifying him as a “dictator”.