Beijing: US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will meet on Thursday in South Korea and exchange views on strategic and long-term bilateral issues, the Chinese foreign ministry announced on Wednesday.
The two leaders will meet on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
As agreed between China and the US, President Xi will meet with President Trump in Busan to exchange views on bilateral relations and issues of mutual interest, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Gou Jiakun told a media briefing here.
“We are willing to work with the US side to promote this meeting to yield positive results, provide new guidance and to inject new momentum for the stable development of China–US relations,” Gou said.
He added that head-of-state diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-US relations, which are currently bogged down over Trump’s massive trade tariffs against Chinese exports and Beijing’s retaliatory actions.
At the meeting, the two heads of state will have in-depth discussions on strategic and long-term issues concerning China–US relations, as well as major issues of mutual concern.
This is their first meeting after Trump’s second term in office and comes in the backdrop of a massive trade war between the world’s top two economies.
High on the agenda is the formalisation of an agreement for the sale of China’s top social media app TikTok to designated American firms, as well as the resumption of rare-earth metals exports, the much-needed key component of dual-use technologies needed for the manufacturing of various items, from mobile phones to defence equipment, blocked by China.
For its part, Beijing wants Washington to lift the restrictions on the exports of semiconductor chips needed for the development and expansion of AI-related technology in China.
Xi and Trump spoke over the phone recently and finalised the contours of a trade deal to normalise trade ties.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday morning, Trump said he expected to discuss with Xi fentanyl flows into the US to address the drug menace and American farm exports to China.
Trump’s remarks followed a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday suggesting that Washington might reduce the 20 per cent fentanyl-related tariffs on Chinese exports by half in exchange for Beijing’s crackdown on the export of chemicals used to produce
fentanyl.