Biden, Moon to talk China, chip crunch at White House summit

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is the second foreign leader to visit the White House since US President Joe Biden took office.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is visiting the White House on Friday, the second foreign leader who United States President Joe Biden has welcomed to Washington since taking office. On the agenda is likely to be the global semiconductor chip shortage that’s paralysing the US auto industry as well as China’s dominance in the region. Moon’s visit follows an April summit between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga — and if the new administration’s choice of opening acts seems stage-managed, that’s no accident, say experts. “It’s clear that the Biden administration is focused on strategic competition with China as a primary foreign policy objective, or as a primary frame for thinking about the challenges it faces in the world,” Scott Snyder, director of the US-Korea policy programme at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera. “It was very intentional that it opened its foreign policy approach in that way.”