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Joe Biden, Xi Jinping will meet on Apec sidelines in Peru, US official says
American leader’s last face-to-face talk with his Chinese counterpart comes amid uncertainty over future of bilateral relations under Trump
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US President Joe Biden will meet with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Saturday in what is likely to be their last face-to-face talk as presidents, according to a senior American official, as Beijing braces for the return of Donald Trump.
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The meeting will take place on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, and will be their third in-person meeting during Biden’s presidency.
Biden is the only American president to have not visited China while in office since the normalisation of bilateral ties in 1979.
The meeting will take place as uncertainties swirl about the future of Sino-American relations after the election of former president Trump, who has vowed to impose 100 per cent tariffs on goods from China.
Upon taking office in 2021, Biden kept much of the hardline policies on China that Trump introduced as president in 2017, including tariffs on mainland products.
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Nevertheless, Biden has repeatedly stressed the importance of managing competition with America’s top rival, even as he took measures to restrict Chinese companies’ access to sensitive technologies in the US.
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