Presidents Biden and Xi to hold talks today

US president Joe Biden and China's Xi Jinping are to hold their first presidential meeting today.

The troubled US-China relationship is demonstrating that the power of one of Biden's greatest professed strengths as a politician — the ability to connect — has its limits.

“When it comes to US-China relations, the gaps are so big and the trend lines are so problematic that the personal touch can only go so far,” said Matthew Goodman, who served as an Asia adviser on the National Security Council in the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations.

White House officials have set low expectations for Monday's virtual meeting: No major announcements are expected and there's no plan for the customary joint statement by the two countries at the end, according to administration officials.

The public warmth — Xi referred to Biden as his “old friend” when Biden visited China in 2013 while the then US vice president spoke of their “friendship” — has cooled now that both men are heads of state.

Biden bristled in June when asked by a reporter if he would press his old friend to cooperate with a World Health Organisation investigation into the corona virus origins.

“Let's get something straight: We know each other well; we're not old friends,” Biden said. “It's just pure business.”

Biden nonetheless believes a face-to-face meeting — even a virtual one like the two leaders will hold Monday evening — has its value.

“He feels that the history of their relationship, having spent time with him, allows him to be quite candid as he has been in the past and he will continue to be,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in previewing the encounter.

Biden,78, and Xi, 68, first got to know each other on travels across the U.S. and China when both were vice presidents, interactions that both leaders say left a lasting impression.

Of late, there have been signs that there could be at least a partial thawing after the first nine months of the Biden administration were marked by the two sides trading recriminations and by unproductive exchanges between the presidents' top advisers.

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