President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have reached an agreement "in principle" to hold a virtual meeting before the end of the year, according to a senior administration official.
Driving the news: The White House announcement followed a six-hour meeting today in Zurich between White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi.
Why it matters: The Biden administration views personal diplomacy between the two leaders to be key to managing the high-stakes, at times confrontational relationship between the U.S. and China.
Behind the scenes: The Zurich talks marked the most senior-level meeting between U.S. and Chinese officials since a frosty Alaska summit in March, where Yang publicly chided Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for challenging Beijing on human rights and other issues.
- A senior official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity said the meeting took on a "different tone than Anchorage," stressing that Sullivan and Yang were able to have a "candid" and "wide-ranging" discussion away from the usual "talking points."
- The official called the Zurich meeting the "most in-depth conversation" that the Biden administration has had with China, characterizing it as an important step in providing a "foundation" to avoid miscalculations that could cause competition to veer into conflict.
- Sullivan raised issues in which the U.S. and China have a mutual interest in cooperating — like climate change — as well as concerns over Beijing's human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Hong Kong and military activities in the South China Sea, the official said.
Zoom in: Asked for any single area where the U.S. and China were currently able to work productively or had made...