US seeks China climate agreements ahead of Biden summit

US special climate envoy John Kerry is in Shanghai to meet with Chinese officials ahead of president Joe Biden’s global climate summit late next week.

Mr Kerry, the first Biden administration official to visit China, is expected to meet with his counterpart Xie Zhenhua, and may also speak with senior foreign policy officials.

The meetings, if successful, could pave the way for climate agreements between the world’s two top emitters of carbon, and see Chinese leader Xi Jinping participate in Mr Biden’s summit for Earth Day.

The visit comes amid tense relations between the US and China. The two nations have sparred over trade, visa policies, human rights violations in Xinjiang and Beijing’s actions to squeeze Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Both the US and China have pledged to prioritise climate change, indicating that they are willing to partner on the issue.

But Washington has made clear that it plans to continue pressing on hot-button issues such as human rights and Taiwan, and that the US will not compromise on those areas as a prerequisite for Chinese cooperation on climate or public health.

Beijing has rejected US concerns over human rights in Xinjiang, shrinking freedoms in Hong Kong and the risk of forcibly reunifying with Taiwan as undue meddling in Chinese affairs.

In an apparent move to make Washington’s position clear, Mr Biden has dispatched an unofficial delegation of former senior US officials touched down in Taipei just as Mr Kerry was due to arrive in Shanghai.

Former US senator Chris Dodd and former deputy secretaries of State James Steinberg and Richard Armitage arrived in Taiwan on Wednesday on a visit that has already upset Beijing.

“The selection of these three individuals – senior statesmen who are longtime friends of Taiwan and personally close with president Biden – sends an important signal about the US commitment to Taiwan and its democracy,” a senior US official told Reuters.

Mr Kerry’s trip to China is the first meeting between US and China after a contentious bilateral meeting in Anchorage last month, and coordinated sanctions from the US, UK, EU and Canada over Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang region.

China responded tit-for-tat with its own sanctions, going after Western politicians, think tanks, academics and lawyers.