Every summit between the leaders of the two big world powers has had its own backstory, from the Cold War to the present day. What sets Wednesday’s meeting between Xi Jinping and Joe Biden apart is that it is happening at all right now.

A toxic political environment has poisoned bilateral relations. To make the summit happen the two leaders had to convince doubters at home and put aside vast differences that seemed irreconcilable at times.

It is no mean feat, and one that should reassure a world concerned by intensifying rivalry.

When President Joe Biden meets Chinese leader Xi Jinping in California on Wednesday, it will mark the first time in exactly one year and one day since the heads of the two nuclear-armed rivals have seen each other in person.

Much has happened since that day in Bali, Indonesia, last year. The two have a long and urgent list of issues to discuss – including two raging wars, a heating planet and a host of other highly flammable issues.

Former President Donald Trump said it best: "We have a guy in the White House who can’t put two sentences together, who couldn’t find his way off this stage. And this is the guy we have negotiating with….President Xi of China." 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, like his boss, often wears his heart on his sleeve when dealing with human tragedies. He is the child of a Holocaust survivor (his stepfather was the only member of his family to emerge from the Nazis’ extermination camps) and the father of two children. His willingness to draw on his personal experiences, rather than put them aside, has made him the perfect emissary of President Biden’s brand of empathy, optimism and persistence.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, key Middle East powers, plan to continue their diplomatic and economic rapprochement with Israel, despite surging opposition in the Arab and Muslim world to Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

On Oct. 23, at around the same time the world was learning that the Qatari and Egyptian governments had won the release of two Israeli women who had been held hostage by Hamas, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was featured on Cristiano Ronaldo’s Instagram. The Portuguese soccer star met the crown prince at a panel discussion on the future of esports—that is, competitive video gaming—where the Saudis announced they would host the first-ever Esports World Cup. Important stuff.

Biden’s team has gone to the Middle East. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Israel, Jordan, and much of the region in a marathon trip. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin visited Israel to meet with his military counterparts, as has the top US military commander in the Middle East. Two US aircraft carrier groups have been deployed to the eastern Mediterranean to provide further support.

The Biden administration is pressing ahead with a concerted effort to strike a “grand bargain” in the Middle East that includes normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, calculating that the U.S. could reap big rewards if it can overcome steep obstacles.

President Joe Biden’s aides have made this diplomatic push a foreign policy priority despite varying degrees of skepticism by experts on whether the timing, conditions and current regional leadership are right for a mega-deal that could reshape the geopolitics of the Middle East.

For months, Saudi Arabia and Israel – with the United States – have been discussing an agreement to normalise relations.

The US has made it clear that official relations between its two allies in the Middle East is a top priority, with top diplomat Antony Blinken declaring it a “national security interest“.

This comes amid a regional realignment after Iran and Saudi Arabia re-established diplomatic ties after years of animosity.

President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to finalize a “complicated” agreement to establish diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel and shore up U.S. security ties with the Gulf Arab state as a hedge against China's encroachment in the Middle East.

“It’s complicated, and to land all of these different pieces, it takes a tremendous amount of work,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday during an MSNBC broadcast. “We’re in the middle of it. It’s still a challenge.”