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The American and Chinese flags. (AP/Yonhap)

US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be sitting down together in San Francisco on Wednesday for their first meeting since last November.

The two leaders are expected to agree to resume high-level dialogue between defense and military leaders at the bilateral summit, which will be held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. However, they are unlikely to reach a breakthrough on major issues including Taiwan and US controls on high-tech imports to China.

Along with Washington’s policy of “de-risking,” which involves controlling China’s access to technology, Biden and Xi are likely to discuss a wide range of topics including Taiwan, reopening communication between defense officials, the war between Israel and Hamas, the war in Ukraine, North Korea, and cooperating on climate change.

The two countries appear to be going into the summit with disparate goals. On Monday, White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan shared that the biggest goal of the upcoming summit is conflict management, explaining that a complex and competitive relationship can “easily veer into conflict or confrontation if it’s not well managed.” On the other hand, China’s express goal as the country faces pressure from the US is to return its relations with Washington back to normal.

Due to the different goals the two countries have, they will likely have a hard time reaching concrete agreement. Even though the two countries agreed to maintain high-ranking communication last November — a relatively low-level commitment — they have barely kept this promise over the last year.

First, to what extent the two countries will come to an agreement on the issue of de-risking draws interest. On Thursday, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen met with He Lifeng, the Chinese vice premier and director of the Office of Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission, during his visit to San Francisco, during which she said the US does not seek to decouple China from supply chains centering the West, while also making clear that Washington will continue its policy of “de-risking” — or blocking Chinese exports in high-tech fields such as AI — for security reasons.

Meanwhile, China began restricting exports of high-tech semiconductor base materials such as gallium and germanium beginning in July in addition to commencing management of key base materials for secondary batteries like graphite and rare-earth elements. In other words, China has begun weaponizing its mineral resources in earnest to counter US de-risking. This is an issue that can have direct economic repercussions not just on the US and China but also on South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Europe.

Washington and Beijing are also in opposition to each other regarding the Taiwan issue, tensions surrounding which are rising ahead of the Taiwanese presidential election scheduled for January. Last November, Xi told Biden that the Taiwan issue was the “very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of political foundation of China-US relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-US relations.” At the time, Biden expressed his regard for Beijing’s “one China” principle while showing concern for China’s hostile attitude.

Quoting a US official, the Financial Times reported on Monday that Biden would merely reaffirm the “one China” policy while expressing strong concern regarding Chinese interference in the Taiwanese presidential election.

Some project that the US and China will come to a certain degree of agreement regarding issues like restoring security channels, restricting the US of AI in the military field, and clamping down on fentanyl. Citing multiple sources, Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun reported on Tuesday that the US and China will agree on resuming high-level talks between their respective military and national defense authorities, which was suspended after then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August last year. The newspaper also added that the two countries are finetuning their agreement to include non-application of AI in nuclear weapons management.

Bloomberg reported that the US and China will agree on cracking down on the manufacture and export of ingredients for fentanyl, which has become a serious problem in the US.

Meanwhile, the US is appearing to utilize the APEC summit as an opportunity to strengthen its containment of China, such as by hosting an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) meeting in San Francisco on Thursday. The New York Times reported that the IPEF, which the US launched with 14 participating countries including South Korea last year, is planning to announce agreements reached in the fields of clean economy and fair economy, two of the four pillars of the organization.

As if to symbolize their countries’ current relations, Biden and Xi reportedly will not come together for a dinner banquet after their summit. The Financial Times reported that Xi plans to have dinner with US executives and Iowa residents who helped him during his visit to the US in 1985 when he was an unknown official.

By Choi Hyun-june, Beijing correspondent; Kim So-youn, Tokyo correspondent; Lee Bon-young, Washington correspondent

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