American President Joe Biden meet with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping live on Monday for the first time since taking office, with US concerns about Taiwan, Russia’s war in Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions on the agenda.

The long-awaited face-to-face meeting took place as relations between the two venues sank to their lowest levels in decades. The two leaders will meet in Bali, Indonesia ahead of the annual Group of 20 (G20) leaders’ meeting.

Biden comes to the meeting after a big win at home with Democrats retaining control of the Senate, and Xi won a historic third term as China’s leader last month.

“I know that I will be promoted, but I don’t need it. I know Xi Jinping, I’ve spent more time with him than with any other world leader,” Biden told reporters in Cambodia today after the news broke in the US Senate.

The U.S. president, who makes a series of stopover trips to the international climate conference in Egypt, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meeting and the East Asia summit in Cambodia ahead of the G20, hopes to create a “relationship framework” with China and ensure the rules are in place which will be mandatory for competition between the two countries.

Biden said recently that he does not want to make fundamental concessions when meeting with Xi and wants them to define their “red lines” and resolve conflict points.

The meeting is unlikely to produce tangible results, and no joint statement is expected, the White House has announced, but it could help stabilize relations marked by rising tensions in recent years on a range of issues from Hong Kong to Taiwan. to the South China Sea, trade practices and US restrictions on Chinese technology.

Biden and Xi, who have spoken by phone or video call five times since Biden became president in January 2021, last met live during the Obama administration.

“This live meeting is an opportunity to reduce tensions and find ways to manage competition,” commented Bonnie Glaser, Asia Specialist at the German Marshall Fund.

The two leaders know each other well: By Biden’s reckoning, they traveled more than 17,000 miles (about 27,300 kilometers) together and spent 78 hours in meetings. They traveled together to the US and China in 2011 and 2012 when both were vice presidents of their respective countries.

^{According to REUTERS, APE-MPE}