U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to India from Sept. 7 to attend a summit of the Group of 20 countries, with a plan to focus in particular on the enhancement of multilateral development banks in the face of China's "unsustainable" lending practices, the White House said Tuesday.
Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the president's trip will run through Sept. 10, during which he will also hold a number of bilateral meetings with leaders from the world's 20 biggest economies on the margins of the summit in New Delhi.
Sullivan also told reporters on a conference call that Vice President Kamala Harris will visit the Indonesian capital of Jakarta for four days from Sept. 4 to take part in the East Asia Summit and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations-related meetings in lieu of Biden.
During the G-20 summit, participants are expected to address global issues such as climate change and the economic repercussions of Russia's war on Ukraine. Biden will also devote himself to the modernization of multilateral development institutions, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, given the scale of China's "coercive and unsustainable lending through the Belt and Road Initiative," Sullivan said.
"We have heard loud and clear that countries want us to step up our support in the face of the overlapping challenges they face, so as we continue to extend critical support to Ukraine, we're going to be delivering for the rest of the world as well," he added.
While referring to China, the adviser said, "I am suggesting the World Bank and IMF are a positive, affirmative alternative to what is a much more opaque, more coercive method" employed by Beijing when offering development aid.
His remarks came hours after the United States announced a four-day trip by Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo to Beijing and Shanghai from Sunday.
Her visit for talks with senior Chinese officials is the latest in a series of high-level meetings the world's two largest economies have held since U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's visit to Beijing in mid-June.
"Her trip is an encapsulation of the approach that the Biden administration is taking, where we are engaged in an intense competition with (China) but intense competition requires intense diplomacy to manage that competition so that it doesn't tip over into conflict," Sullivan said.
"Secretary Raimondo will carry with her the message that the United States is not seeking to decouple from China but rather to de-risk, and that means protecting our national security and ensuring resilient supply chains alongside our allies and partners, while we continue our economic relationship and our trade relationship," he said.
As part of the increased communications, Biden is hoping to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this year, despite disagreements over major political and economic issues.
Biden said Friday he anticipates a meeting with Xi "this fall," making the comment at a press conference following a summit with the leaders of Japan and South Korea at his rustic presidential retreat of Camp David near Washington.
The Biden administration is seeking to arrange a formal summit between the presidents of the United States and China on the sidelines of this year's summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in November in San Francisco.
Whether Biden and Xi will hold a one-on-one conversation during the G-20 summit remains an open question that has drawn media attention. During the conference call, Sullivan did not specify with whom Biden may meet in the Indian capital.
