Biden says he hopes sit-down with Xi puts US, China on 'normal course'

WASHINGTON

US President Joe Biden said Tuesday he hopes his upcoming sit-down with Chinese President Xi Jinping puts US-Sino relations "back on a normal course," including the full restoration of bilateral communications.

That includes "being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another if there's a crisis, being able to make sure our military still have contact with one another," Biden told reporters at the White House.

"We're not trying to decouple from China. What we're trying to do is change the relationship for the better," he said.

"The Chinese people who are in trouble right now economically -- if the average citizen in China was able to have a decent paying job, that benefits them and it benefits all of us. But I'm not going to continue to sustain the support for positions where if we want to invest in China, we have to turn over all our trade secrets," he added.

Biden and Xi are slated to have their first sit-down in a year Wednesday as Pacific nations meet for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, California.

Beijing suspended military-to-military communications, and took other punitive measures, in reprisal for the downing of a Chinese aircraft that transited the US in February.

Washington maintains the aircraft was part of a covert global surveillance program, charges denied by Beijing, which says it was a weather balloon that flew off course.