G20 Leaders to Meet in Indonesia on 15 Nov

World leaders are gathering in Indonesia for the G20 summit, which begins 15 Nov’ 2022.

But first, President Biden and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, will meet face to face later today for the first time since Biden took office. (They have a long history: The two met as vice presidents. After a 2011 meeting, Biden said he found Xi potentially difficult to manage: “I think we’ve got our hands full with this guy,” he told advisers.)

The meeting will test whether the leaders can halt a downward spiral in relations.

Biden is in a strong position. In defiance of historical precedent, Democrats will maintain control of the U.S. Senate after winning seats in Nevada and Arizona. “I know I’m coming in stronger,” Biden said of the elections, “but I don’t need that.”

And Xi has signaled friendliness. He told the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations that he wanted to “find the right way to get along,” and a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said that “the U.S. and China should move toward each other, managing and controlling disagreements in a proper way and promoting mutually beneficial cooperation.”

Analysis: “This is in a sense the first superpower summit of the Cold War Version 2.0,” said Evan Medeiros, who was Barack Obama’s top adviser on Asia-Pacific affairs.

Context: China has brandished its potential ability to choke off Taiwan, and the U.S. has imposed export controls on the sale of advanced computer chips to China. The war in Ukraine will also loom large.

Joko Widodo: The summit is a major opportunity for the Indonesian president. Joko is eyeing a bigger geopolitical role after eight years of an insular, domestic focus.