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Biden failed to secure summit with China's Xi in call last week
September 15, 2021
Jinping shakes hands with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (L) inside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing December 4, 2013. REUTERS/Lintao Zhang/Pool
WASHINGTON, Sept 14 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden proposed a first face-to-face summit with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in a call last week, but failed to secure an agreement, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, an account later denied by the White House.
"This is not an accurate portrayal of the call. Period," Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said in a statement.
The Financial Times cited multiple people briefed on last Thursday's 90-minute call as saying Xi did not take Biden up on the offer and instead insisted that Washington adopt a less strident tone toward Beijing.
A source who was among those briefed on the call confirmed the report was accurate.
"Xi apparently intimated that the tone and atmosphere of the relationship needed to be improved first," the source told Reuters.
China's embassy in Washington did not immediately respond when asked to comment.
The Financial Times quoted one of its sources as saying Biden had floated the summit as one of several possibilities for follow-on engagement with Xi, and he had not expected an immediate response.
It cited one U.S. official as saying that while Xi did not engage with the idea of a summit, the White House believed that was partly due to concerns about COVID-19.
The G20 summit in Italy in October has been talked about as a possible venue for a face-to-face meeting, but Xi has not left China since the outbreak of the pandemic early last year.
Biden denies China's Xi turned down meeting offer
U.S. President Joe Biden denied on Tuesday a media report that his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, last week turned down an offer from Biden for a face-to-face meeting.
