The two leaders are expected to hold a virtual summit on Monday amid tensions over Taiwan, arms control, and human rights.
"This meeting is a holding action to keep channels of communication open and to halt a further rise in bilateral tensions," Freeman said. "The Biden-Xi summit may pause the current deterioration in relations between Washington and Beijing. It is unlikely to cure it."
This meeting, Freeman said, might usefully begin a discussion of measures to reduce the danger of an accidental nuclear exchange, establish standards for crisis management, and institute measures of escalation control. But any actual development of such mechanisms would take years, if not decades, he added.
Moreover, each side is constrained by its domestic politics, Freeman warned.
"Elites in each are emotionally antagonistic to the other. Biden cannot afford to take actions that would invite further attack on his policies from either the right or the left," Freeman said. "For his part, Xi Jinping must answer to Chinese nationalists insulted by what they regard as American disrespect and highhandedness."
Freeman said the summit could facilitate dialogue at lower levels on planet-wide problems such as climate change, environmental regulation and remediation, pandemics, and non-proliferation.