China, US trying best to maintain 'competition with cooperation', says expert as Xi meets Biden

The summit will be the first face-to-face meeting of the two leaders in a year and follows months of high-level meetings to prepare the ground after tensions between the two countries spiked over issues from trade to human rights and the pandemic.

Speaking to ETV Bharat, India's former ambassador Anil Trigunayat said both the US and China were trying to maintain some balance amid worsened ties. "The US and China are trying their best to keep their 'competition with cooperation' paradigm from degrading into a direct conflictual situation despite deep ideological differences."

"There is a realization among them that perhaps the G2 (the group of two) approach will be able to create some viable equilibrium but till fundamental differences and competing geopolitical interests are not genuinely addressed, there is always a danger of it sliding into the same near conflict syndrome," Trigunayat said.

He pointed out that the Indo-Pacific remains a priority as well as a concern for the US. "India in my view will have no direct consequence of any understandings reached that in the case has many inherent challenges", Trigunayat said.

G2 or Group of Two was a proposed informal special relationship between China and the US. As two of the most influential and powerful countries in the world, there have been suggestions within American political circles of creating a G-2 relationship where the United States and China would work out solutions to global problems together.

Xi is due to meet Biden near San Francisco on Wednesday morning US time, before attending the annual summit of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping. Speaking ahead of his departure to San Francisco, Biden said his goal was simply to improve the bilateral relationship.“We’re not trying to decouple from China. What we’re trying to do is change the relationship for the better,” Biden told reporters at the White House.

The summit is an opportunity for both countries to reduce friction which is seen by many in the global community as dangerous rivalry. According to the White House, the summit's objective is to enhance communication to prevent potential conflict between the two nations.