Joe Biden lays out goals for high-stakes meeting with Xi Jinping

President Joe Biden outlined Tuesday what he hopes to accomplish in his meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Biden and Xi will meet Wednesday in San Francisco on the outskirts of the APEC summit. Reports indicate the leaders plan to talk for roughly four hours about a variety of issues, including trade and regional security.

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The president briefly took questions on the topic following his Tuesday climate remarks at the White House.

Asked to define a successful meeting with Xi, Biden mentioned one security-focused goal: “To get back on a normal course of corresponding, being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another if there’s a crisis, being able to make sure our militaries still have contact with one another.”

“We’re not trying to decouple from China. What we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better. From my perspective, if in fact, the Chinese people who are in trouble right now economically, if the average homeowner — if the average citizen in China was able to have a decent paying job that benefits them and it benefits all of us,” the president continued. “But I’m not going to continue to sustain the support for positions where if we want to invest in China, we have to turn over all our trade secrets.”

Tensions between the U.S. and China have gradually worsened on Biden’s watch.

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Beijing cut off military-to-military contact with the Pentagon after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) visited Taiwan in 2022. That relationship hit a boiling point earlier this year following the Chinese spy balloon scandal.

To date, China still claims the aircraft shot down by U.S. Air Force assets was a weather balloon.