Chinese President Xi to attend Biden's climate change summit

BEIJING, April 21 (MENA) - China's President Xi Jinping will attend a US-led climate change summit on Thursday at the invitation of President Joe Biden, in the first meeting between the two leaders since the advent of the new US administration, NBC News reported.

Biden has invited dozens of world leaders to join the two-day virtual summit, which starts Thursday, since bringing the United States back into the 2015 Paris Agreement on cutting global carbon emissions.

Xi will attend the summit via video and will deliver an "important" speech, Hua Chunying, spokeswoman at the Chinese foreign ministry, said in a statement Wednesday.

Beijing and Washington have persistently clashed over a range of issues from alleged human rights abuses to China's economic clout over other nations.