The US will host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco from November 11, and the American and Chinese presidents are expected to meet on the sidelines of the gathering. The Chinese foreign minister also met Biden during his three-day visit to Washington last week.

But according to a statement from China’s foreign ministry, Wang cautioned that “the road to the San Francisco summit will not be a smooth one”, and that the two countries “cannot rely on autopilot” for it to happen.

Diplomatic observers are largely keeping expectations low in terms of what the meeting – the leaders’ first in-person talks in a year – can actually achieve.

“I do not expect a major breakthrough. I do not expect a major thaw,” said Chong Ja Ian, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore.

He said he expected both sides to try to get a better understanding of each other’s position while signalling a desire for further dialogue.

“There may be some establishment of more stable mutual expectations, perhaps more dialogue to deconflict and mitigate risk,” Chong said, adding that there was likely to be some emphasis on mutual respect and reciprocity.

Relations between the two world powers deteriorated rapidly last year but both sides have worked to improve communication and increase engagements in recent months, with top US officials making trips to China.

David Arase, resident professor of international politics with the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre for Chinese and American Studies, said a wide range of issues could be on the table when the leaders meet.

Among other things, he expected that they would call for the release of hostages and for humanitarian relief for Gaza citizens, agree to make efforts to reduce tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, and they were also likely to promote cooperation in “non-strategic areas” such as climate change.

For the Xi-Biden meeting, Arase expected Washington to seek Beijing’s help to pressure Russia, North Korea and Iran – countries that are challenging American interests. Beijing, meanwhile, could be expected to ask for a rollback of economic sanctions imposed on China by the US.

But their efforts, according to Arase, were likely to be met with “little success”.

He said a Xi-Biden meeting may not achieve any major outcomes “but it could reopen lines of regular discussion and consultation that arrest the worrisome decline and growing hostility in bilateral ties”.

Alfred Wu, associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the topics Xi and Biden would discuss were contingent on the time allocated for the summit.

If the leaders have more time, Wu expected a more elaborate discussion on issues plaguing bilateral ties. If not, they could be expected to chart a “general direction to manage relations, open lines of communication, and to not make the situation worse”, he said.

When Xi and Biden last met – on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia last November – they spoke for three hours on topics ranging from Taiwan to North Korea.

“Particularly, for the South China Sea, China’s position is very different from the US’ and [that of other claimant states like] the Philippines,” he said, calling it a “deadlock issue”.

China claims almost the entire resource-rich waterway and its coastguard has in recent months been involved in several stand-offs with vessels from neighbouring countries such as the Philippines.

Washington has backed Manila and reiterated its commitment to protect the Philippines in the event of an armed attack in the South China Sea.

Wu suggested that the two leaders would view the summit as a channel to speak to each other while “trying to avoid the worst-case scenario, which is war”.

The meeting would help both leaders domestically too, he said. For Biden, the summit would signal that he was capable of communicating with China. And for Xi, it would present China as “being treated as equals” with the US and a leader of the world.

While the summit could be beneficial for both sides, Wu noted that the two countries had “very different values” – such as their views on the Ukraine war and their visions for the global order – which could limit the success of the talks.

With the US election nearing and Republicans ready to seize on any sign of weakness, the Biden administration may have little room for flexibility even when it comes to shared global problems such as the Israel-Gaza conflict, according to Chong from the NUS.

Wang Huiyao, founder of Beijing-based think tank the Centre for China and Globalisation, said a Xi-Biden summit would be “very significant” – especially to China’s neighbours.

Leaders in the region have long called for more stable US-China ties and have voiced growing concerns about having to take sides in the heightened superpower rivalry.

“A mere picture of [the two leaders] shaking hands will send a huge signal to the outside world,” Wang said, calling the summit “long overdue”.

Wang said he expected the meeting to work towards stopping the downward spiral of bilateral ties and improve people-to-people exchanges between the two nations.

“The meeting will produce a good result for other regions. It’s meeting the expectations of the world,” he said. “The world needs stability and [when] the leaders of the two largest economies meet, it will stabilise the world economy and generate good signals for the rest of the world.”

Arase from the Hopkins-Nanjing Centre for Chinese and American Studies said a Xi-Biden meeting would convey a message to the world that the US and China were acting responsibly to peacefully manage their differences.

Southeast Asian countries – which have increasingly found themselves sandwiched between the US and China – would find that reassuring but they would remain on guard, he said.

“They know that Sino-US relations remain fraught, and that growing instability in Europe, the Middle East and Northeast Asia create ripple effects that have a destabilising effect in Southeast Asia,” he said.

Chong said regional countries would view the meeting as a desire for stability on Beijing and Washington’s part. But he said while some were hoping for a return to the engagement of the 1990s and 2000s, it would not be possible.

“Neither the US nor China have an interest to return to that situation even if they wish to prevent their competition from spiralling out of control,” he said. “Southeast Asia will have to learn to live with a more contentious world where there is more major power friction.”