And both countries had just swapped imprisoned citizens, after the Justice Department announced a deferred prosecution agreement with a top executive of Huawei, the telecommunications giant, allowing her to return to China. Within hours, two Americans and two Canadians, long held by China, were on planes home.
It is not clear when, exactly, the summit will be held. Presumably other officials will participate, just as they would if the meeting were held in the United States or China.
Still, the decision to hold the summit by secure video contrasts sharply with how Mr. Biden met with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia last June. That meeting, at a hillside villa in Geneva, was in person.
A senior American official briefing reporters after the Wednesday meeting said the two men had a candid conversation that was direct and wide-ranging. Mr. Sullivan, the American official said, objected to the Chinese effort to condition its cooperation on issues in which both nations have a strong national interest — for example, countering global warming or nuclear proliferation — on American concessions in bilateral disputes.
Mr. Sullivan, the official said, cited climate specifically as an example where aligning the two nations’ approaches is not simply a favor to the United States. But China often accuses the United States of similar linkage — for example, imposing sanctions on China for human rights violations, which Beijing considers interference in domestic affairs.