Will Xi or won’t Xi? Why Beijing has held off confirming attendance at Apec
- The White House hopes the Chinese president will be at the forum and hold his first in-person meeting with Joe Biden in a year
- While the meeting seems likely, China has concerns about being embarrassed by US actions like new sanctions during the visit
All signs point to a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden during the Apec forum in San Francisco in two weeks. But Beijing has yet to officially confirm Xi’s attendance, a delay reflecting the dismal level of bilateral trust, Beijing’s political culture, concern that Xi could be embarrassed by last-minute events and a bid to extract concessions, analysts said.
Factors behind the hesitancy, analysts and a People’s Republic of China official said, include Beijing’s bid to extract a promise that Washington will not announce new sanctions or other awkward developments during the visit.
“The Chinese don’t want their leader to be embarrassed in the run-up to the summit, during his visit to the US, or immediately following the trip,” said Bonnie Glaser, Indo-Pacific managing director with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
“This undoubtedly includes an expectation that the US will refrain from taking actions, such as adding new PRC entities to control lists or announcing new export controls.”
02:17
China’s Wang Yi calls for ‘in-depth’ Sino-US dialogue ahead of Antony Blinken talks in Washington
In 2017, Xi was unsettled when then-president Donald Trump launched – as the two leaders sat down to eat steak and pan-seared fish at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida – a missile strike on Syria, regarded as a US power play for Trump’s impending talks with Xi over North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.