President Biden told China’s Xi Jinping that they must “manage their differences” when they met for highly-anticipated face-to-face talks Monday — as relations between the two superpower countries are at their most intense in decades.

The two leaders, both in Indonesia for the G20 summit, greeted each other with a handshake in front of a row of US and Chinese flags before they stepped away to begin what was expected to be about three hours of discussions.

“As the leaders of our two nations, we share responsibility, in my view, to show that China and the United States can manage our differences, prevent competition from becoming anything ever near conflict, and to find ways to work together on urgent global issues that require our mutual cooperation,” Biden said before his first in person meeting with Xi since entering the White House in 2021.

Xi recalled their last meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in 2017 and said as world leaders they need to “chart the right court for the China-US relationship.”

“We need to find the right direction for the bilateral relationship going forward and elevate the relationship,” the president and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party said.

“A statesman should think about and know where to lead his country.  He should also think about and know how to get along with other countries and the wider world,” he added.

The two are expected to address climate change, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The meeting comes as relations have grown more strained between the two nations, with Taiwan emerging as the most contentious issue.

Biden has repeatedly declared that the US would defend the island in case of a Beijing-led invasion.

In addition, the US has repeatedly taken Beijing to task for human rights abuses against the Uyghur people and crackdowns on democracy activists in Hong Kong.

Biden spoke Sunday with South Korean President Koon Suk-Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the East Asia Summit in Cambodia about North Korea’s recent missile launches and nuclear tests. 

Speaking to reporters, Biden offered a preview of his talks with Xi. 

“I know Xi Jinping. I’ve spent more time with him than any other world leader. I know him well. He knows me. We have very little misunderstanding. We just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us going into the next two years,” Biden said.

He also said he will press Xi on Beijing’s military presence in the Taiwan Strait and urge him to respond more forcefully to Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine.