US President Barack Obama has arrived in China to attend his final Group of 20 (G20) summit and hold tense meetings with several world leaders, including with the summit's host, Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Air Force One, the aircraft specifically designed for transporting US presidents, landed in Hangzhou, the host city of this year's G20 meetings, just after 2 pm local time.
During his 11th trip to Asia as president, Obama faces several complicated issues during the summit, where leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies are expected to have a tough talk about how to stimulate the sluggish global economy and push ahead against climate change.
Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes says Obama will have a tough talk with Xi on human rights, tensions around maritime disputes in the South China Sea, cyber attacks, monetary policy and theft of intellectual property.
On Sunday, Obama is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, where they will have their first discussions following a failed coup attempt in Turkey to overthrow him in July.
Senior White House officials said Obama will not officially meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit is likely.
Washington and Moscow are deeply divided over the crises in Syria and Ukraine as well as Russia’s alleged hacking of Democratic political organizations in the US.
The US president will also meet British Prime Minister Theresa May for the first time Sunday on the margins of the summit, according to a White House official who said the two leaders will discuss a "range of bilateral and global issues."
Obama will then make a historic visit to the Southeast Asian country of Laos later on Monday, becoming the first US president to travel to the nation that continues to disarm thousands of cluster bombs dropped there by the US military during the Vietnam War.