ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE (Reuters) -United States President Joe Biden will make clear in his bilateral meeting with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Indonesia that his country seeks no conflict, a White House official said on Sunday.
The two leaders are set to meet on the sideline of the G20 summit in Bali this week for their first face-to-face meeting since Biden took office. Jake Sullivan, a national security adviser to Biden, said the meeting could last “a couple of hours”.
“The president sees the United States and China as being engaged in a stiff competition, but that competition should not tip over into conflict or confrontation,” Sullivan told reporters. “It needs to be managed responsibly … and there are also areas where we can work together.”
The U.S. president is on his way to the G20 summit in Indonesia having just met with Southeast Asian and East Asian leaders in Cambodia.
Biden’s visit to Cambodia showed there is a “huge demand signal” for U.S. engagement, Sullivan said aboard Air Force One.
He added that Biden feels the results of the U.S. midterm elections, in which the Democratic Party crushed hopes of a Republican ‘red wave’, will establish a strong position for him on the international stage.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose;Writing by Kanupriya KapoorEditing by David Goodman and Elaine Hardcastle)
