[종합] ​Next week Biden-Xi Jinping to hold video summit… Focus on improving relations and resolving trade disputes

A summit between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to take place next week. As it is the first official meeting with President Xi since Biden took office in January, attention is being drawn to whether the ties between the two countries will improve.

On the 9th (local time), Bloomberg and Reuters reported that the two countries were still discussing the specific date of the meeting, citing people familiar with the matter.

Since Biden took office on January 20, the two leaders have not held an official summit yet. The two leaders only held bilateral conversations over the phone calls for two hours and 90 minutes, respectively, in February and September.

Until now, the media expected the two leaders to hold a face-to-face bilateral summit in the wake of the G20 summit at the end of last month or the 26th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) meeting earlier this month. The event was ultimately canceled due to lack of attendance. Instead, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Chinese foreign policy bureau chief Yang Jiechi met last month in Zurich, Switzerland, and agreed to hold a video-based summit between the two leaders within the year.

Since then, there have been no reports of the U.S.-China summit except this one. In this regard, White House deputy spokeswoman Carine Jean-Pierre reconfirmed the report at a regular press conference on the same day, but declined to comment in detail. “The two countries have in principle reached an agreement on a video summit within this year,” he said.

Although the Chinese authorities did not express an official position, they started to create an atmosphere for the US-China summit. After the report, at the event of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations held at the Chinese embassy in the United States, Xi’s letter in English, delivered to President Biden, was released. In the letter read by Chinese ambassador to the US, Chin Kang, President Xi said, “The Sino-US relationship is at a critical historical crossroads.”

Xi said, “Both countries will benefit from cooperation, but will only suffer losses through confrontation.” “We need to properly manage difference,” he urged.

In response, CNBC pointed out that the harsh tone of China’s message to the US has shifted to a calmer tone. He also pointed out that it could be interpreted as Xi’s response to President Biden, who called for cooperation between the two countries in a phone call last September. At the time, the White House evaluated the two leaders’ attempts to engage in dialogue as “part of an effort to responsibly manage the (system) competition between the two countries” and “a consensus was formed on the need to take responsibility so that the rivalry between the two countries does not escalate into a conflict.” .

Therefore, attention is also being paid to whether or not next week’s summit will open the door for the restoration of relations between the two countries. So far, the US side has revealed that the goal of the summit is to manage bilateral relations rather than to draw specific results. The goal is to maintain a ‘a steady state’ by keeping a ‘communication channel’ between the two leaders open.

However, there are also expectations that Xi can show leadership both inside and outside China through dialogue with the US. This is because the US-China summit will be held right after the 6th Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (the 6th Plenary Session of the 19th Session), which is a place to build a historical justification for a third consecutive term next year.

In this case, there is a possibility that there will be advanced discussions on the North Korean nuclear issue and climate change cooperation, which have been considered strong areas in which the two countries can initiate cooperation with relative ease. Above all, as the deadline for evaluating the implementation of the first phase of the US-China trade agreement at the end of this year approaches, attention is also focused on whether the two countries can find a clue to resolve the trade dispute through this meeting.

On the same day, Reuters also paid attention to whether the US consulate in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China, and the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, were re-established, respectively, which were closed in July last year. However, Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP) later issued a counter-report, citing two sources, stating that it would not address the issue.