WASHINGTON, November 16. /TASS/. US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping have held "candid and constructive" talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in California, the White House said.

"The two leaders held a candid and constructive discussion on a range of bilateral and global issues and exchanged views on areas of difference," the US presidential administration wrote on the X social network (formerly known as Twitter).

Formal meeting in the extended format concluded at 1:35 p.m. local time (9:35 p.m. GMT). After the formal talks, which lasted slightly more than two hours, the leaders continued their conversation at dinner. They were joined by the top US and Chinese diplomats, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, as well as by US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party Cai Qi.

The meeting took place at Filoli Historic House, a secluded estate in the San Francisco Bay Area. Biden and Xi met 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.