BEIJING, November 16. /TASS/. During a meeting with US President Joe Biden in California, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the US leader about growing protectionism and obstacles for global supply chains, China’s Central Television said.

"We last met on [the island of] Bali. A year has passed, and a lot of things happened," said Xi, who is meeting with Biden on the sidelines of the APEC summit in San Francisco. "The global economy has started to recover, but the momentum is sluggish. Obstacles still exist in global supply chains, and protectionism is on the rise."

The Chinese president said those problems were very pressing. Although the COVID-19 pandemic is formally over, it still reverberates in various parts of the world, he added.

"The Chinese-US relations <…> should lead to prosperity of the two nations. We need to demonstrate commitment to the progress of the humanity," Xi Jinping said.

The meeting is taking place at Filoli Historic House, a secluded estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. Biden and Xi are meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit currently under way in San Francisco.

It was the seventh meeting between the presidents of China and the United States since Biden took office in January 2021, and their second face-to-face talks. The two presidents met in person for the first time in November 2022, on Indonesia’s resort city of Bali.