China remains uncommitted to Xi Jinping’s attendance at Apec summit as tensions persist
- Top diplomat Wang Yi says a decision on Chinese president’s attendance at the meeting will be announced ‘formally in due course’
- Amid shaky relations, Beijing is seeking commitments from Washington ahead of the leaders’ summit in November, sources say
Beijing and Washington are still working on a diplomatic compromise that could open a pathway to Chinese President Xi Jinping attending the Apec summit in San Francisco – but first they must find their way past differences on key issues.
The prospective meeting between Xi and US President Joe Biden during the Apec summit in November had been high on the agenda in talks between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Malta earlier this month, sources said.
The two had “candid, substantive and constructive” talks for more than 12 hours over two days that ended on September 17, according to readouts from both sides after the meeting.
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‘China will not challenge or replace the US’, Xi tells Blinken at crucial meeting
But a decision was yet to be made as China could not obtain certain US commitments leading up to the Apec meeting, according to sources. Beijing has deemed US actions over Taiwan and the shooting down of a suspected surveillance balloon as provocative, and has demanded the US avoid such acts before the summit, sources told the Post.
Those guarantees were not possible because the US legislative branches – the House of Representatives and the Senate – are beyond the control of the Biden administration, which would have to manage increasingly hawkish domestic sentiments towards China, especially as a presidential election approaches, sources said.
Shaky relations between the world’s two leading powers have begun to stabilise after a turbulent year of tensions over issues ranging from export controls on advanced chips to the saga over a suspected spy balloon.
Four senior officials from the Biden administration have visited China this year, but a potential meeting between the two leaders was thrown into more uncertainty after Xi skipped a recent gathering of world leaders in India.