Image source, Reuters

The two leaders have met and shaken hands in the foyer of the hotel, in front of a row of US and Chinese flags.

The US President has just arrived at the Mulia hotel where he will hold his first face-to-face meeting with Xi Jinping since he took office.

US news agency Associated Press had reported in the past half hour that Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov - in Bali as Russia's G20 representative - had been taken to hospital.

However the Russian foreign ministry swiftly denied that report - saying it was false.

The spokesman of the Russian embassy in Indonesia Alexander Tumaykin has also denied the report.

Lavrov arrived in Bali on Sunday as Russia's envoy for the G20 summit. President Putin withdrew last week.

Tessa Wong
Reporting from Bali

Image source, EPA

When he touched down in Bali a few hours ago, Xi Jinping was given a red carpet welcome in his highest profile trip out of China in years.

Stepping off his presidential jet while clutching the hand of his wife Peng Liyuan, he walked down the stairs to a crowd waving Chinese flags.

Many were in traditional dress and a group of Balinese dancers performed a welcome dance for Xi as he shook hands and briefly chatted with Indonesian leaders.

The delegation included maritime affairs and investment minister Luhut Panjaitan and Bali’s governor I Wayan Koster.

Several kilometres away, in the main hall of the G20 media centre, scores of reporters stopped work, riveted by the live broadcast of Xi’s arrival. Some snapped photos of the screen.

There is a big Chinese media presence here, ready to cover Xi’s trip.

He has spent most of the pandemic in China, and only recently began travelling overseas again. No expense has been spared, it seems.

State broadcaster CGTN has set up a broadcast pavilion outside the media centre for its live reporting, larger than that of most broadcasters (the BBC included).

State news agency Xinhua has its own dedicated shuttle bus for its journalists and even its own Wifi network at the media centre.

The Chinese leader’s arrival has energised the summit, and all eyes are on the meeting with Biden due to be held any minute now at the Mulia hotel where Xi is staying. The stage is set for a showdown.

Tessa Wong
Reporting from Bali

Image source, Reuters

The US and Chinese leaders are set to meet in less than an hour. Many will be watching out for fireworks, but some experts say it will be a tamer meeting than we think.

“I don’t see any big shoot-out or clash,” says John Kirton, a political science professor and founder of the G20 Research Group.

“Both of these leaders have overwhelming incentives not to go, at the end of their meeting, in front of TV cameras and say: ‘We failed’.

"Too much is at stake for both of them and for all the countries they want to keep on their side, and there are so many things they can agree on.”

These include keeping North Korea from veering into nuclear recklessness and tackling climate change, Mr Kirton told the BBC.

He also pointed out that the meeting comes as the two leaders make their rounds in the region at high-level meetings, such as the Asean and Apec summits.

“It’s not just a date, it’s a relationship, and it means they can’t betray one another, because there’ll be payback in the next encounter. So there’ll be co-operation.”

But they are certain to stick to their guns on a number of things - both have signalled they will not concede on their respective positions on Taiwan, for instance.

Mr Kirton said Biden may use Russia’s recent setback in the Ukraine war to to Xi that “look, given what’s happened in Kherson… Mr Xi it’s probably a bad idea to invade Taiwan as soon as you might like”.

Biden will also be keen to show other leaders that democracy “is a model of the future internationally, and the kind of authoritarianism under Xi, dictator for life, is not really working at home for China any more”, said Mr Kirton.

Chris Mason
Political editor

Image source, PA Media

Hello from the British prime minister’s plane to Bali.

We should be arriving in a few hours.

Rishi Sunak’s only been in office for a matter of weeks.

This is his second overseas trip in the job — he dashed to the COP27 climate summit last week.

This summit will provide the first chance for a British PM to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine to a senior Russian minister face to face.

Sunak will do that when all the countries’ representatives get together for a discussion involving all of them.

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is representing Vladimir Putin.

The prime minister confronts what he calls “the biggest economic crisis in a decade.”

It is a crisis, shared; big chunks of the world economy are already shrivelling or expected to soon.

But Rishi Sunak also has to patch up what he calls the “mistakes” of his predecessor Liz Truss, and take on critics in his own party who fear cranking up taxes while simultaneously cutting spending risks making a bad situation worse.

On the first leg of this long flight to Bali, he told us the UK has stabilised “because people expect the government to take the decisions that will put our public finances on a sustainable trajectory… and that’s what the chancellor will do.”

A host of observers, including countries such as Singapore and major economic figures such as the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the US Treasury Secretary, are all expressing hope that Xi and Biden can build trust and ward off risks to the global economy.

"I hope it goes well," Singapore's Prime Minister Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loon told reporters on Sunday. "It's important in order to stop the deterioration in their relations, to start to build trust, and to take steps to begin to work towards resolving the many individual issues - which are very difficult ones - between the two countries."

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said tariffs put on Chinese imports under then-US President Trump had been counterproductive.

"Once you let the genie out of the bottle, it's hard to put it back," she told the Washington Post.

"We may be sleepwalking into a world that is poorer and less secure as a result."

Meanwhile US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she hoped that a good meeting between the two leaders would provide some stability to US businesses. She also mentioned China's zero-Covid policy where closed borders and lockdowns have damaged the economy.

"What I'm very much hoping is that as a result of the president's bilateral... we'll engage in more intensive conversations... about the Chinese economy, global macroeconomic outcomes, and health policies both in the US and China that are impacting those outcomes."

Stephen McDonell
Reporting from Beijing

Xi Jinping’s presence at the G20 and other summits should not be interpreted as a sign that China is about to re-open.

Even the easing of certain measures announced at the end last week do not point to an end to the strict zero-Covid approach, certainly not in the coming months.

The Chinese government has altered its settings, reducing inbound quarantine by two days, and stopping the punishment for air lines bringing in Covid-infected passengers etc, but the overall policy designed to reduce every outbreak of the virus to zero new cases has not changed.

That said, Xi Jinping travelling abroad is not nothing.

For the first two years of the Covid pandemic, China’s leader didn’t leave the country.

Apart from not wanting to risk the potential for him to get sick, this was also an indication to all Chinese people that they too should remain at home.

So, the images of him now strutting the world stage represent some sort of a step forward.

The unspoken message is that it must now be safe for him to travel to other countries which will lead to many Chinese people thinking, if he can travel overseas why shouldn’t I?

The world's press is beginning to descend on the Melia hotel, where Biden and Xi are due to hold their first sitdown meeting in about two hours.

A row of flags are being moved into place, while Chinese state media is also reportedly showing pictures of how the meeting room has been set up.

A US official has been briefing reporters on Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's comments about Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the East Asia Summit in Cambodia on Sunday.

The US official said Li spoke at length about China's views on the war, and condemned the "irresponsibility of nuclear threats". Putin has repeatedly hinted at a readiness to use nuclear weapons.

The unnamed US official said that despite China's allyship with Russia there was clear "discomfort in Beijing" over Russia's rhetoric.

"I think it is also undeniable that China is probably both surprised and even a little embarrassed by the conduct of the Russian military operations," the US official said.

Meanwhile the Financial Times quotes a Chinese official as saying that Putin did not tell Xi that Russia was about to invade Ukraine when the two leaders met in February to seal a "friendship without limits".

"Putin didn't tell Xi the truth," the unnamed Chinese official told the newspaper.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is unlikely to attend the G20, but the war and its global impact are a major concern at the summit.

The Chinese president has just touched down at Ngurah Rai International Airport.

He is due to meet his US counterpart Joe Biden in about two hours.

Australia's PM has been expanding on his meeting with Xi, slated for Tuesday.

"Australia will put forward our own position, I look forward to having a constructive discussion with President Xi tomorrow," Albanese told reporters.

"I've said since I became the prime minister, but before then as well, that dialogue is always a good thing. We need to talk in order to develop mutual understanding."

Australia's prime minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed that he will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 - the first such meeting between the countries' leaders since 2016.

Relations deteriorated after Australia accused China of foreign interference and Beijing took umbrage at Canberra's call for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus.

Those tensions further escalated in 2020 when China slapped tariffs and other trade blows on over a dozen Australian export products. All diplomatic meetings were put on ice as Beijing refused to take Canberra's calls.

However, Australia elected a new government in May. Albanese flagged last week he was seeking a meeting with Xi. According to this tweet below, he appears to have secured one.

Biden is making conciliatory noises ahead of his meeting with Xi - but the backdrop is a marked chill in relations.

China faces an ongoing trade war with the US and a fresh attempt to deny China access to high-end American chip-making technology that, according to some commentators, is designed to slow China's rise "at any price".

Beijing argues that the chill is being driven by America's desire to maintain its position as the pre-eminent world power.

President Joe Biden's National Security Strategy, external defines Beijing as a bigger threat to the existing world order than Moscow. And Washington has begun to talk about a Chinese invasion of democratic Taiwan as an increasingly realistic prospect rather than a distant possibility.

This is a long way from the days when both US and Chinese leaders would declare that mutual enrichment would eventually outweigh ideological differences and tensions between an established superpower and a rising one.

Read more from the BBC's John Sudworth here - Can the US live in Xi Jinping's world?

China has made it clear that it does not want a deadlock in its relationship with the US - but the ball is now in the US court, says one Chinese expert.

Yawei Liu, director of the Carter Center's China Program, told BBC Chinese: “I think China's attitude is now very clear... it wants to restore the relationship.”

He noted that before the recent 20th Communist Party Congress, Foreign Minister Wang Yi had visited the US and made clear to US officials that China and the US "must find certainty in peaceful coexistence".

But Mr Liu was also pessimistic that the meeting would lead to a breakthrough.

“The US does things, often in a very hardline style,” he said, pointing out the recent US ban on exporting chips to China.

He also noted that Biden has emphasised that they are not seeking conflict.

“But China's perception is that it talks the talk but often does not walk the walk. For example, the US says it adheres to the One China policy, but it has made a lot of small moves on the Taiwan issue,” he said.

Image source, Reuters

Indonesia's leader and G20 host Joko Widodo has had a meeting with Biden.

Jokowi, as he is known, expressed his hopes that the G20 would "produce concrete cooperation that will help the recovery of the global economy".

In response Biden said he looked forward to Widodo - his "good friend" - visiting the White House in May. He described Indonesia as a vibrant and critical partner.

Indonesia and US were "two of the largest democracies in the world" and could help uphold the international order, he said.

He also mentioned US investment in Indonesian transport and clean energy projects.

Jokowi hopes to play chief dealmaker at the G20 - can he do it?

Read more here

Jonathan Head
Reporting from Bali

Few leaders can claim the familiarity Biden and Xi have with each other - the first of their many meetings came in 2011, just before then-Vice-President Biden was asked by President Obama to try to establish a rapport with the incoming Chinese leader.

But a great deal has changed since those friendly, exploratory encounters, a time when Biden said the US did not fear but welcomed the rise of China.

Back then differences over human rights and trade could be managed more easily behind the broader consensus over issues like the need to promote economic recovery from the 2008 financial crash and countering terrorism.

Over his ten years in power Xi Jinping has turned out to be a more ruthless, authoritarian and nationalist leader than expected, determined to restore his country’s status as a world power and to resist what he sees as US efforts to contain and encircle China, perhaps eventually even to overthrow its one-party system.

Image source, Getty Images

As president Biden’s descriptions of Xi have been much harsher: “He doesn’t have a democratic bone in his body”.

So what hope, in this frosty superpower stand-off, is there for any progress at this first face-to-face meeting of the Biden presidency?

Biden seems to be putting his faith in straight-talking - outlining clearly what the US red lines are over most of all Taiwan, but also the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nuclear weapons and many other disagreements - and in using the residue of their past, easier familiarity to rebuild trust, and in a conviction that both sides need and want to avoid a dangerous escalation.

He is a stronger figure now after the results of the US mid-term elections, though will still be viewed by the Chinese side as a leader with probably only two years left in power. He has insisted that for all his willingness to listen, he will not be offering concessions at this meeting.

And Xi, after entrenching his power indefinitely after last month’s Communist Party Congress? His goals, and readiness to overcome his mistrust of the US are much harder to guess.

Karishma Vaswani
Reporting from Bali

Image source, EPA

The world's richest businessman has just appeared virtually at the business summit that runs alongside the G20 - an event known as the B20.

Musk has had an interest in Indonesia for some time - ostensibly to invest in nickel mines here that would come in handy for his electric vehicle business.

Musk, dressed in a bright green batik shirt, appeared via video link.

Perhaps a physical visit would have been a distraction because of what’s going on with his ownership of Twitter, so are the Indonesians really all that disappointed?

When I mentioned the notable absence to Arsjad Rasjid, host of the B20 and the head of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce, he jokingly asked - “Who?”, and then seemed to downplay his absence.

“Of course, we are disappointed,” he told me on the sidelines of the summit. “He is an investor, I hope he invests in Indonesia. But there’s a lot of other investors who are here you know, from many countries."