Xi to attend Biden’s climate summit in first meeting of two leaders
BEIJING China President Xi Jinping will attend a US-led climate change summit today at the invitation of US President Joe Biden, in the first meeting between the two leaders since the advent of the new US administration.
Mr Biden has invited dozens of world leaders to join the two-day virtual summit starting today, after bringing the US back into the 2015 Paris Agreement on cutting global carbon emissions.
Mr Xi will attend the summit via video and deliver an "important speech", Ms Hua Chunying, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a statement yesterday.
Beijing and Washington have persistently clashed over a range of issues from alleged human rights abuses to China's economic clout over other nations.
In Alaska last month, US and Chinese officials held the first high-level in-person talks that bristled with rancour and yielded no diplomatic breakthroughs.
But the two countries have rediscovered a common interest in battling climate change.
Last week, US climate envoy John Kerry travelled to Shanghai to meet with his Chinese counterpart in the first high-level visit to China by a Biden administration official.
- REUTERS
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