Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the reception on the National Day on the eve of the 71st anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing, China, on September 30, 2020.
Thomas Peter | Reuters
BEIJING – Chinese President Xi Jinping will deliver a video conference speech Thursday at a climate summit of world leaders hosted by US President Joe Biden, state media said Wednesday.
Many expected the leaders of the world’s two largest economies – and the biggest carbon emitters – to have their first meeting on the sidelines of the summit as tensions simmer between the two countries. Since taking office in January, Biden has called China the “most serious competitor” to the US, as he insists on former President Donald Trump’s tough stance on Beijing.
Xi and Biden spoke in February, just before the Chinese Spring Festival.
Reducing CO2 emissions is one of the few areas that China and the US could work together on, and ties in with Xi’s announcement last year that the Asian nation is aiming to achieve maximum CO2 emissions by 2030.
Over the weekend, the US and China jointly issued a broad statement on how the two countries would work together to “tackle the climate crisis.”
The statement followed two days of talks in Shanghai between US special climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua.
On Tuesday, at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia, Xi said China would support “green” development, particularly with regard to the Belt and Road Initiative. Critics say the infrastructure development program is part of Beijing’s attempt to increase its influence among the region’s less developed countries.
Xi did not mention the US by name in his speech, but said that large countries should act responsibly and that China would not seek hegemony or “a sphere of influence”.
Wednesday’s announcement that Xi would attend the climate summit comes more than three weeks since Biden invited 40 world leaders to attend the two-day meeting on Thursday and Friday.