White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed Friday afternoon that President Joe Biden will hold a virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping Monday evening.
“Following their September 9 phone call, the two leaders will discuss ways to responsibly manage the competition between the United States and the PRC, as well as ways to work together where our interests align,” Psaki wrote in a statement distributed to the press. “Throughout, President Biden will make clear U.S. intentions and priorities and be clear and candid about our concerns with the PRC.”
White House officials did not comment when asked by the Washington Examiner about what specific actions the summit might produce, but they stressed the importance of the conversation. The officials noted that, while virtual, the summit would still be the first time Biden will be able to speak face to face with Xi as president, something the administration has stressed as an important part of the president’s attempted reset of U.S.-Sino relations.
The U.S. and China notably announced a joint pledge to cooperate on climate during the second week of the COP26, the United Nations’s climate summit.
“The U.S. and China have no shortage of differences,” John Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate, said in a speech. “But on climate, cooperation is the only way to get things done.”
The U.S. and China remain the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters, and the new agreement works toward “maximizing the societal benefits of the clean energy transition.”
In particular, the agreement includes Chinese commitments to decrease coal consumption from 2026 to 2030 and to “make best efforts to accelerate this work.”
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This is a developing story and will be updated with more information as it becomes available.
