The United States and China have a basic agreement to arrange a summit later this month between the presidents of the two countries, a White House official said Wednesday, while seeking to ensure there is no confusion about the plan with Beijing.

"I don't want to get ahead of where we are in the logistical planning process, but we have agreed to a meeting in principle," said Emilie Simons, deputy White House press secretary. "We are working closely with the Chinese to put those plans together."

In speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling with President Joe Biden to Minnesota, she also said, "We are all on the same page" and the two countries have "regularly acknowledged the importance of leader-to-leader channels in managing this bilateral relationship."

Last week, China's top diplomat Wang Yi met with Biden, his top national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Following the series of meetings, which lasted about 10 hours over the course of two days, both sides said they had agreed to work toward a summit between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the fringes of a leaders' meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in mid-November in San Francisco.

Compared with their U.S. counterparts, however, Chinese officials including Wang have been more careful in choosing their words about the planned face-to-face talks between the two presidents.

Wang has said "the path to San Francisco" for their first summit in a year cannot rely on "autopilot," suggesting more work needs to be done over differences on key issues.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman on Wednesday also stopped short of confirming whether a basic agreement on the Biden-Xi summit had been reached with the United States.

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