President Biden will meet President Xi Jinping of China for their first summit by the end of this year — but virtually, not in person, a concession to a pandemic era and a recognition of the dangers of going an entire year into a new presidential term without a formal meeting between the leaders of the world’s largest and second-largest economies.

The announcement on Wednesday from American officials came after a six-hour meeting between Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, and his closest Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, Beijing’s top diplomat.

Xi Jinping. File photo

American officials had sought an in-person meeting. But Xi has not left Chinese territory for such meetings in nearly two years, and will not be at the Group of 20 summit in Rome this month, which the Chinese leader usually attends.

Sullivan’s meeting came after a September 9 telephone call between Biden and Xi in which the two leaders agreed that there was too little communication between their governments. But by the time Sullivan arrived in Zurich for Wednesday’s meeting, China’s air force had been entering Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, a clear warning to the island.