As the sun sets in Bali, Xi and Biden remain ensconced in the Mulia hotel, their meeting approaching the two-hour mark.
Officials in the United States do not believe it will last much longer. However, with Biden’s press conference scheduled for 21:30 local time (13:30 GMT), it is clear that they are also prepared for talks to last longer if necessary.
The two are believed to be discussing Taiwan, global economic security, North Korea, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The US also hopes that the meeting will ease tensions that have risen since US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August.
He says it was this method that “played an important role in diplomatic ice-breaking during the Cold War years” – a reference to tension between the US and its allies and the Soviet Union and its allies during the mid-20th Century.
However, “these talks did not necessarily happen at the level of heads of state,” Landry points out.