The anticipated meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping is on track for next week on the sidelines of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco, but the White house is not expecting the face-to-face to result in major changes to the relationship between the two nations, according to a person familiar with the planning.

The White House announced late last month that U.S. and China had come to an agreement in principle for Biden and Xi to speak to each other in person on the sidelines of the summit — the first engagement between the leaders in what's been a tension-filled year between the world's two biggest economic powers. But with Biden set to arrive in San Francisco in a week for the summit, exact timing and other logistical details have not yet been formally announced.

The U.S. believes that the two sides will be able to made some modest announcements following their meeting, but the fundamental differences in the relationship will remain unchanged, according to the person, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Jude Blanchette, chair of China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Biden and Xi were looking “to intentionally keep that bar low.”

“What’s going on here is an attempt to have a deep conversation where the two sides directly share their concerns, but more importantly that the meeting unlocks, especially in the Chinese system, space for further engagement in constructive work,” Blanchette said.

There's been plenty of effort by both sides to lay the groundwork for the expected San Francisco meeting.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is set to meet Thursday and Friday with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in San Francisco before finance ministers of the APEC member nations officially kick off the summit Saturday.

The meeting between the two senior government officials comes after Biden spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the White House for about an hour late last month, when Beijing’s top diplomat came to Washington for talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Xi similarly met with Blinken in June when the secretary of state traveled to Beijing for talks with Wang.

Yellen last met with her counterpart He during a July visit to Beijing, when she urged Chinese government officials to cooperate on climate change and other global challenges and not to let sharp disagreements about trade and other irritants derail relations.

Biden and Xi last met nearly a year ago on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, a nearly three-hour meeting in which Biden objected directly to China’s “ coercive and increasingly aggressive actions” toward Taiwan and discussed Russia's invasion of Ukraine and other issues.

The already fraught relationship has become only more complicated since that Bali meeting. Differences have sharpened as a result of U.S. export controls on advanced technology; Biden ordering the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon after it traversed the continental United States; and a stopover in the U.S. by Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen earlier this year, among other issues.

Beijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island’s decades-old de facto independence permanent, a step U.S. leaders say they don’t support. Under the “One China” policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as the government of China and doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but it has maintained that Taipei is an important partner in the Indo-Pacific.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, left, shakes hands with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng during a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, July 8, 2023.

Yellen will host the Chinese vice premier for talks in San Francisco before the start of APEC summit.

 U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will host Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng for two days of talks this week, the latest in a series of high-level talks between U.S. and Chinese officials as the world's two largest economies aim to ease tensions, the Treasury Department announced Monday.

The Yellen-He talks set for Thursday and Friday come ahead of the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco which starts November 11. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet next week during the summit, what would be the first engagement between the two leaders in nearly a year.

“As a foundation, our two nations have an obligation to establish resilient lines of open communication and to prevent our disagreements from spiraling into conflict,” Yellen wrote in a Washington Post op-ed to spotlight the upcoming meeting. “But we also know that our relationship cannot be circumscribed to crisis management.”

The meeting between the two senior government officials comes after Biden spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the White House for about an hour late last month, when Beijing's top diplomat came to Washington for talks with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. Xi similarly met with Blinken in June when the secretary of State traveled to Beijing for talks with Wang.

Yellen last met with her counterpart He during a July visit to Beijing, when she urged Chinese government officials for cooperation on climate change and other global challenges and not to let sharp disagreements about trade and other irritants derail relations.

China's Foreign Ministry said that He, who is the government's lead person on U.S.-China economic and trade issues, would visit the U.S. from Nov. 8-12.

Yellen is expected to amplify the message on climate during her talks with He in San Francisco. Treasury in a statement said that Yellen will also underscore that the Biden administration “will take targeted action to advance our national security and that of our allies, and protect human rights, but we do not use these tools to seek economic advantage.”

Tensions between the two countries remain high, including over U.S. export controls on advanced technology. The Biden administration has also taken Beijing to task for economic practices that it says have put U.S. companies and workers at a disadvantage.

The U.S. has also criticized China’s lending practices under its $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative, a network of projects and maritime lanes that snake around large portions of the world, primarily Asia and Africa. Critics, including the Biden administration, say China’s projects often create massive debt and expose nations to undue influence by Beijing.

Yellen in her op-ed wrote she would raise during the meetings the administration's "serious concerns with Beijing’s unfair economic practices, including its large-scale use of non-market tools, its barriers to market access and its coercive actions against U.S. firms in China."

The U.S. has also repeatedly raised concerns about China’s assertive actions in the East and South China seas.

The U.S. military last month released a video of a Chinese fighter jet flying within 10 feet (three meters) of an American B-52 bomber over the South China Sea, nearly causing an accident. Earlier in October, the Pentagon released footage of some of the more than 180 intercepts of U.S. warplanes by Chinese aircraft that occurred in the last two years, part of a trend U.S. military officials call concerning.

The U.S. also has renewed a warning that it would defend the Philippines in case of an armed attack under a security pact, after Chinese ships blocked and collided with two Philippine vessels off a contested shoal in the South China Sea.

Beijing has released its own video of close encounters in the region, including what it described as footage of the USS Ralph Johnson making a sharp turn and crossing in front of the bow of a Chinese navy ship. The U.S. destroyer also was captured sailing between two Chinese ships.