US President Joe Biden is expected to use his final meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to urge him to dissuade North Korea from increasing its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
The talks on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru come just over two months before Mr Biden leaves office and makes way for Republican President-elect Donald Trump.
It will be Mr Biden’s last check-in with Mr Xi – someone the Democrat saw as his most consequential peer on the world stage.
With the final meeting, officials say Mr Biden will be looking for Mr Xi to step up Chinese engagement to prevent an already dangerous moment with North Korea from further escalating.
On Friday, Mr Biden, South Korean President Yoon Seok Yul and Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba condemned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to send thousands of troops to help Moscow repel Ukrainian forces who have seized territory in Russia’s Kursk border region.
Mr Biden called it “dangerous and destabilising cooperation”.
White House officials also have expressed frustration with Beijing, which accounts for the vast majority of North Korea’s trade, for not doing more to rein in Pyongyang.
Mr Biden, Mr Yoon and Mr Ishiba spent most of their 50-minute discussion focused on the issue, agreeing it “should not be in Beijing’s interest to have this destabilizing cooperation in the region”, an official said.
The North Koreans also have provided Russia with artillery and other munitions, according to American and South Korean intelligence officials. The US, Japan and South Korea have also expressed alarm over Pyongyang’s stepped-up cadence of ballistic missile tests.
Mr Kim ordered testing exercises in the lead-up to this month’s US election and is claiming progress on efforts to build capability to strike the US mainland.
Mr Biden and Mr Xi have much beyond North Korea to discuss, including China’s indirect support for Russia, human rights issues, technology and Taiwan, the self-ruled democracy that Beijing claims as its own.
There is also uncertainty about what lies ahead in the US-China relationship under Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to levy 60% tariffs on Chinese imports.
Already, many American companies, including Nike and eyewear retailer Warby Parker, have been diversifying their sourcing away from China. Shoe brand Steve Madden plans to cut imports from China by as much as 45% next year.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden administration officials will advise the Trump team that managing the intense competition with Beijing will likely be the most significant foreign policy challenge they will face.
